tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89692955668059506642024-03-07T19:52:08.675-08:00Science StuffBear Market Economics (Issues and News)NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.comBlogger174125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-424435473320526112016-11-29T12:08:00.000-08:002016-11-29T12:13:31.086-08:00You End Up Believing What You Want to Believe<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Psychology Today</span></h2>
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<strong><a class="dark-link block-link" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/art-markman-phd" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; clear: both; color: black; display: block; float: left; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s; word-wrap: break-word;">Art Markman Ph.D.</a></strong><a class="dark-link block-link" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; clear: both; color: black; display: block; float: none; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s; word-wrap: break-word;">Ulterior Motives</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201107/you-end-believing-what-you-want-believe" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">You End Up Believing What You Want to Believe</a></h2>
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You bias your interpretation of evidence toward what you desire.<br />
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<b>Posted Jul 01, 2011</b></div>
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Just yesterday, one of my colleagues posted a link to a paper from the <em>American Journal of Clinical <a class="inline-links topic-link" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/diet" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(153, 153, 153); color: black; padding-bottom: 2px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s; word-wrap: break-word;" title="Psychology Today looks at Nutrition">Nutrition</a> </em>published in 2010 that analyzed data from a number of studies involving almost 350,000 people. The analysis suggests there is no significant relationship between heart disease and eating saturated fats. He seemed excited about this result, presumably because it supported his desire to eat fatty foods. </div>
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It is always nice to discover that something you hoped were true really is true. But, can your desire for an answer affect the way you evaluate the evidence?</div>
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This question was explored in a clever study by Anthony Bastardi, Eric Uhlmann, and Lee Ross published in the June, 2011 issue of <em>Psychological Science</em>. They examined how people evaluated new evidence when what they <em>believed</em> to be true conflicted with what they <em>wanted</em> to be true.</div>
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n this study, participants were people who expected to have children in the near future. All of them believed that caring for young children at home was better for the child than sending them to an outside daycare. Of these participants, half were people who expected they would send their child to daycare some day, while the other half were people who expected they would keep their child at home.</div>
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The experiment was conducted in a different session from when the participants expressed their beliefs about daycare and home care, and so it was not obvious to participants that this study was intended to be related to their existing beliefs or plans for the future. </div>
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In the experiment, everyone read one study that supported the conclusion that home care really is better than daycare. The other study supported the conclusion that daycare is better than home-care. The methods of the two studies were different. People were asked to evaluate the studies for whether the methods were valid and whether the studies were convincing. </div>
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Not surprisingly, the people who believed that home care is better and planned to care for their children at home believed that studies demonstrating that home care is best were more convincing than those demonstrating that daycare is best. </div>
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Those who planned to care for their children using daycare showed the opposite pattern. Even though they originally believed that home care is best, they found the study demonstrating daycare to be best to be more convincing than the study demonstrating home care to be best.</div>
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In many real-world situations, there is conflicting evidence from different studies. So, it is important to make judgments about which evidence is strongest. But, these results suggest that people are <a class="inline-links topic-link" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/bias" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(153, 153, 153); color: black; padding-bottom: 2px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s; word-wrap: break-word;" title="Psychology Today looks at biased">biased</a> to interpret the evidence in ways that are consistent with their desires. That means that people may ultimately come to believe that the weight of evidence supports the position that they already wanted to believe was true. And they will believe this without recognizing that their own desires influenced the evaluation of the evidence.</div>
NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-9412010022703464392016-11-24T09:02:00.001-08:002016-11-24T09:02:28.224-08:00The Existence of Trans People Validates Diversity and Nothing More<br />
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No, The Existence of Trans People Doesn’t Validate Gender Essentialism</h1>
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<time class="entry-time" datetime="2015-03-09T15:00:00+00:00" itemprop="datePublished" style="box-sizing: border-box;">March 9, 2015</time> by <a class="author url fn" href="http://everydayfeminism.com/author/kayleej/" rel="author" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" title="Posts by Kaylee Jakubowski">Kaylee Jakubowski</a></div>
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By now, it should be no secret that <a href="http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/11/misconceptions-trans-ally-understand/" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" title="10 Misconceptions Every Trans Ally Needs to Understand">allyship with trans people</a> is a core component to <a href="http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/01/why-our-feminism-must-be-intersectional/" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;">intersectional feminist thought</a>.</div>
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Yet there is still one question I consistently hear from well-intentioned friends and colleagues: “<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">D</em><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">on’t trans people validate the idea that men and women must exist within certain societal roles? Doesn’t it perpetuate gender essentialism?</i>”</div>
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This question – conjoined with the constant assault of doubt and skepticism aimed at the entire existence of trans identities – has likely haunted a fair share of politically conscious trans activists themselves at one point or another over the course of their transition.</div>
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To answer this question, we’ll need to start by defining <a href="http://std.about.com/od/G-L/fl/What-is-gender-essentialism.htm" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">gender essentialism</a>:</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">Gender essentialism is the idea that men and women have inherent, unique, and natural attributes that qualify them as their separate genders.</span></div>
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These differences are often biological or sexual, and they are almost exclusively viewed as polar opposites: Men are strong, women are weak; men are dominant, women are submissive; men have penises, women have vulvas; men have a high sex drive, women constantly need convincing; and so on and so forth.</div>
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Gross, right?</div>
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Moreover, gender essentialism fuses gender and sex to one another intrinsically. To someone promoting gender essentialism, gender and sex are identical. Naturally growing a masculine-read body, but being a woman (i.e. a trans woman) is a sheer impossibility.</div>
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This is the reason why some see <a href="http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/12/10-things-starting-transition/" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" title="10 Things I Wished I’d Known When I Started My Transition">transitioning</a> as a submission to essentialist thought: Trans women and trans men are making their bodies more feminine or masculine, accordingly, and thus promoting this fusion of gender and sex. Right?</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">Not exactly.</span> <span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">This assertion isn’t as cut-and-dry as it might seem.</span></div>
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In fact, it is absolutely possible to take a stance against gender essentialism and still continue to transition – or to support your Queer kin who are doing so.</div>
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Transition Itself Is Non-Essentialist</h2>
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As I mentioned above, two core parts of gender essentialist thought are the biological and sexual assumptions that go along with a person’s definition of what it means to be a man or a woman (<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">and being </i><a href="http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/10/non-binary-people-portraits/" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">neither of these</i></a><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">, of course, is right out of the question</i>).</div>
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A common narrative that trans people express is that they aim to become their <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">“</i><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/05/transgender-woman_n_1311562.html" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">true selves</i></a><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">.”</i></div>
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However, <span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">striving to become one’s true self is not the same thing as the popular misconception that trans men or trans women are working to “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/19/magazine/when-women-become-men-at-wellesley-college.html" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">become the opposite sex.</i></a>”</span></div>
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The differences between these two are subtle, but important.</div>
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The first description implies that they are <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">already</i> men, women, or non-binary and are searching for ways to <a href="http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/05/separating-identity-expression/" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" title="Separating Out Gender Identity from Gender Expression">better express their reality</a>.</div>
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The latter implies that their identity is completely invalid <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">until</i> they alter their bodies. Right from the get-go, we’re subjected to a cissexist perspective on trans realities.<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;"></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">Of course we’re going to believe that transitioning is inherently essentialist when the argument starts this way – because it has been inaccurately presented to us </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">as </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">inherently </span></em><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">essentialist.</span></div>
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The journey to become one’s “<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">true self</i>” frequently passes through many places. A common one involves the person freeing themselves from the gender expression expected of people with their body and adopting one that feels more natural.</div>
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Another involves altering their body so that they can feel more comfortable in it, which allows them to reclaim it for themselves in the way that they see best fit.To answer this question, we’ll need to start by defining <a href="http://std.about.com/od/G-L/fl/What-is-gender-essentialism.htm" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">gender essentialism</a>:</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">Gender essentialism is the idea that men and women have inherent, unique, and natural attributes that qualify them as their separate genders.</span></div>
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These differences are often biological or sexual, and they are almost exclusively viewed as polar opposites: Men are strong, women are weak; men are dominant, women are submissive; men have penises, women have vulvas; men have a high sex drive, women constantly need convincing; and so on and so forth.</div>
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Gross, right?</div>
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Moreover, gender essentialism fuses gender and sex to one another intrinsically. To someone promoting gender essentialism, gender and sex are identical. Naturally growing a masculine-read body, but being a woman (i.e. a trans woman) is a sheer impossibility.</div>
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This is the reason why some see <a href="http://everydayfeminism.com/2013/12/10-things-starting-transition/" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" title="10 Things I Wished I’d Known When I Started My Transition">transitioning</a> as a submission to essentialist thought: Trans women and trans men are making their bodies more feminine or masculine, accordingly, and thus promoting this fusion of gender and sex. Right?</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">Not exactly.</span> <span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">This assertion isn’t as cut-and-dry as it might seem.</span></div>
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In fact, it is absolutely possible to take a stance against gender essentialism and still continue to transition – or to support your Queer kin who are doing so.</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">Both of these self-affirmations break apart the idea that the person is permanently and biologically tied to their gender, </span>while still affirming their <a href="http://everydayfeminism.com/2015/02/respecting-your-childs-autonomy/" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" title="3 Ways to Respect Your Child’s Autonomy While Still Being a Parent">right to be autonomous</a> over their own body and to alter it to their content.</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">Transitioning is non-essentialist by its nature because it actively defies the idea that bodies need to or should operate in accordance with how they “<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">naturally</i>” operate.</span></div>
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It denies the presumption that our bodies have a biological predestination and queers (<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">as opposed to maintains</i>) the social constructs surrounding gender and our bodies.</div>
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Trans People Are Diverse</h2>
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Another major reason why the “<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">transition-as-essentialist</i>” argument falls flat is because not every trans person is identical or wants the same things.</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">A full body transition is not desired by every trans person.</span></div>
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There are even major trans activists who promote the radical idea that <a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/zinnia-jones/2013/08/10-rules-for-managing-your-penis-when-youre-trans/" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">trans women can actually love the body they’re in</a> and don’t need to feel coerced to change themselves.</div>
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Conversations between trans people about their bodies, the gendering of them, and the significance and political meaning of physical transition have been happening in Western culture for as long as two trans people have been talking to one another. In fact, trans people have been defying the gendered expectations of their bodies for at least as long.</div>
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Furthermore, <span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">the argument that transitioning is inherently essentialist undermines the diversity that exists even within people who <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">are </i>transitioning.</span></div>
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Butch trans women <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCxH0s0YtPU" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">exist</a>.</div>
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Femme trans men <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO1TqUaLPZk" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">exist</a>.</div>
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Transitioning agender and non-binary people <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJCdGw4g-vg" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">exist</a>.</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">These expressions and identities, in and of themselves, subvert gender essentialist expectations by queering the binary constructs of gender, gender roles, and expectations.</span></div>
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A person’s <a href="http://everydayfeminism.com/2014/10/gender-confirmation-surgery/" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank" title="16 Myths About Gender Confirmation Surgery">decision to change their body</a> – or advocating for increased autonomy so that they can – does not necessitate advocacy for a gender essentialist world.</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">Just the opposite, it adds options and opportunity for people to exist in non-essentialist ways</span>. It opens doors for people to express their genders and reclaim their bodies where they would otherwise feel trapped.</div>
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Most importantly, it shows off the gender binary and the norm of arbitrarily gendering children for what these systems really are: broken as all hell.</div>
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Well, Okay, Maybe It’s a <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">Little</em> Essentialist</h2>
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I’ve spent the last two sections demonizing gender essentialism and showing how it is not the sole purpose for transitioning, and I stand by those arguments.</div>
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Gender essentialism – <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">in the way I defined it above and the way that it’s understood throughout our society</em> – is a totally garbage concept that is largely to blame for much of the gender-based oppression within our culture.</div>
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This is obvious just by looking at how our own identities differ from the social norms that exist around us. We alone dictate that gender essentialism simply <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">can’t </i>be natural law.</div>
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Biologist and Queer-feminist activist <a href="http://juliaserano.com/" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">Julia Serano</a> talks about her own apprehensions toward gender essentialism in regards to her own identity in her book <a href="http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781580055048" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive</i></a>.</div>
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She compares the nature-vs-nurture dichotomy first by showing the flaws in gender being recognized as only genetic:</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">“[I]f being genetically male automatically led to a male identity, masculine gender expression, and exclusive attraction to women, [then] how did I become a bisexual femme-tomboy transsexual woman?”</em></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">Simply put, if gender essentialism were the rule, genderqueer identities just wouldn’t exist.</span></div>
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The ills that gender essentialism has brought women and non-binary folx has led many of these people to embrace <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">gender artifactualism</i>, the understanding of gender as strictly a <a href="http://thefeministagenda.blogspot.com/2009/04/social-construction-of-gender.html" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">social construction</a>.</div>
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After all, gender norms differ from culture to culture, and they certainly don’t accurately describe every person within our own culture, so they can’t be natural or inherent to us as humans.</div>
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But Serano addresses an inconsistency with the idea that gender is exclusively a social phenomenon as well.</div>
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She describes scenarios in which male children were reassigned as female (<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">after their</i><em style="box-sizing: border-box;">“ambiguous”</em><i style="box-sizing: border-box;"> genitals or </i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">botched circumcisions</i></a><i style="box-sizing: border-box;"> led doctors to mandate it for them</i>) grew up to be men or have “male-typical” traits, despite them being raised and socialized as girls.</div>
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She also touches on how this gender artifactualism doesn’t coincide with her own gender reality, using a similar argument as above:</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;">“[If] socialization artificially brainwashes all of us into becoming heterosexual masculine men and feminine women, then how do you explain the existence of fabulous bisexual femme-tomboy transsexual women such as myself?”</em></div>
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Out of this conundrum, Serano concludes that there is only one explanation: <span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">G</span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">ender is neither essentialist </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">nor </i></span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">artifactualist, but is </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">both </i></span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">essentialist </span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">and</i></span><span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;"> artifactualist, each to some degree depending on the individual person. </span>She refers to this concept as the <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">holistic model of gender</i>.</div>
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So while neither our biology nor our socialization <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">exclusively </i>dictate who we will be and how we will identify, there is evidence that <i style="box-sizing: border-box;">both</i> of these influences simultaneously and convolutedly guide us toward one direction or another. (<i style="box-sizing: border-box;">This outcome should be unsurprising in a field of study that works to </i><a href="http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/gustafson/FILM%20165A.W11/film%20165A%5BW11%5D%20readings%20/Lorber.Beyond.pdf" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">deny binaries and dichotomies</i></a>).</div>
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From there, finding the comfort zone between self-affirmation and political idealism is up to the individual – as not every trans person is an activist, after all.</div>
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Gender essentialism is a tricky topic.</div>
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On one hand, it’s been used to legitimize both sexism and trans-antagonism; on the other, evidence suggests that it might not be entirely unfounded for every person.</div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: proxima-nova-bold;">Finding the middle ground between our bodies and our cultural influences has always been a paramount idea in feminism – and the politics of transitioning are no different.</span></div>
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Not to mention that advocating for and supporting transgender rights by acknowledging the diversity that exists within trans people is inherently non-essentialist, the only result that could come from progress is that more doors and opportunities will be opened for people to explore their genders and create a society that respects the full array of human experience.</div>
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<em style="box-sizing: border-box;"><i style="box-sizing: border-box;">Kaylee Jakubowski is a Contributing Writer for Everyday Feminism. She is a trans, Queer feminist with specific interests in ecofeminism, anti-imperialism, Queerness, and statistical approaches to social justice work. Xe is pursuing a B.S. in Statistics with a minor in Women’s & Gender Studies. Feel free to Like her <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fyeah.kayleejakubowski" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">Facebook Page</a>, follow her on <a href="http://total-queer-move.tumblr.com/" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">Tumblr</a>, or see what she’s up to <a href="https://www.facebook.com/JakubowskiMusic" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">musically</a>. </i><a href="http://everydayfeminism.com/author/kayleej/" style="background-color: inherit; box-sizing: border-box; color: #ff6600; text-decoration: none; transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;" target="_blank">Read her other articles here.</a></em></div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-48510928765112002802015-12-30T17:12:00.000-08:002015-12-30T17:18:23.417-08:00Scientists Are Beginning to Figure Out Why Conservatives Are…Conservative<br />
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<a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/biology-ideology-john-hibbing-negativity-bias" target="_blank">Scientists Are Beginning to Figure Out Why Conservatives Are…Conservative</a></h2>
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Ten years ago, it was wildly controversial to talk about psychological differences between liberals and conservatives. Today, it's becoming hard not to.</h3>
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—By <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/authors/chris-mooney" rel="author" style="border: none; color: black; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Chris Mooney</a></div>
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| Tue Jul. 15, 2014 5:00 AM EDT</div>
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<span class="master-image-caption" style="font-family: Verdana, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; font-weight: bold;">Scientists are using <a href="http://newsroom.unl.edu/releases/2009/06/17/Study+discovers+clues+into+how+eyes+search" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;">eye-tracking devices</a> to detect automatic response differences between liberals and conservatives.</span><span class="byline photo-byline" style="font-family: Verdana, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.4em; margin: 3px 0px 1em;">University of Nebraska-Lincoln</span></div>
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You could be forgiven for not having browsed yet through the latest issue of the journal <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=BBS" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><em>Behavioral and Brain Sciences</em></a>. If you care about politics, though, you'll find a punchline therein that is pretty extraordinary.</div>
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<span class="inline inline-right" style="display: block; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 5px 20px;"><a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/07/http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney//" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;"><img alt="Click here to read more about the science of why we don't believe in science." class="image image-preview " height="150" src="https://motherjones.com/files/images/science_denial.jpg" style="border: 0px; text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;" title="Click here to read more about the science of why we don't believe in science." width="200" /></a><span class="caption" style="display: block; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', 'Bitstream Vera Serif', serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.4em; margin-top: 3px; width: 198px;"><strong style="font-style: normal;"><a href="http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/denial-science-chris-mooney" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Click here to read more from Mooney on the science of why people don't believe in science</a>.</strong></span></span></div>
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<em>Behavioral and Brain Sciences</em> employs a rather unique practice called "Open Peer Commentary": An article of major significance is published, a large number of fellow scholars comment on it, and then the original author responds to all of them. The approach has many virtues, one of which being that it lets you see where a community of scholars and thinkers stand with respect to a controversial or provocative scientific idea. And in the latest issue of the journal, this process reveals the following conclusion: A large body of political scientists and political psychologists now concur that <em>liberals and conservatives disagree about politics in part because they are different people at the level of personality, psychology, and even traits like physiology and genetics</em>.</div>
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That's a big deal. It challenges everything that we thought we knew about politics—upending the idea that we get our beliefs solely from our upbringing, from our friends and families, from our personal economic interests, and calling into question the notion that in politics, we can really <em>change</em> (most of us, anyway).</div>
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It is a "virtually inescapable conclusion" that the "cognitive-motivational styles of leftists and rightists are quite different."</div>
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The occasion of this revelation is a <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FBBS%2FBBS37_03%2FS0140525X13001192a.pdf&code=0dc53272b98187d10e528452fc6608c7" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">paper</a> by <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/inquiring-minds-john-hibbing-physiology-ideology" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">John Hibbing</a> of the University of Nebraska and his colleagues, arguing that political conservatives have a "negativity bias," meaning that they are physiologically more attuned to negative (threatening, disgusting) stimuli in their environments. (The paper can be read for free <a href="http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2FBBS%2FBBS37_03%2FS0140525X13001192a.pdf&code=0dc53272b98187d10e528452fc6608c7" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">here</a>.) In the process, Hibbing et al. marshal a large body of evidence, including <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/inquiring-minds-john-hibbing-physiology-ideology" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">their own experiments</a> using eye trackers and other devices to measure the involuntary responses of political partisans to different types of images. One finding? That conservatives respond much more rapidly to threatening and aversive stimuli (for instance, images of "a very large spider on the face of a frightened person, a dazed individual with a bloody face, and an open wound with maggots in it," as <a href="http://www.unl.edu/polphyslab/Oxley%20et%20al%202008.pdf" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">one of their papers</a> put it).</div>
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In other words, the conservative ideology, and especially one of its major facets—centered on a strong military, tough law enforcement, resistance to immigration, widespread availability of guns—would seem well tailored for an underlying, threat-oriented biology.</div>
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The authors go on to speculate that this ultimately reflects an evolutionary imperative. "One possibility," they write, "is that a strong negativity bias was extremely useful in the Pleistocene," when it would have been super-helpful in preventing you from getting killed. (The <a href="http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/quaternary/pleistocene.php" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Pleistocene epoch</a> lasted from roughly 2.5 million years ago until 12,000 years ago.) We had John Hibbing on the <a href="http://bit.ly/15fno2h" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><em>Inquiring Minds</em> podcast</a> earlier this year, and he discussed these ideas in depth; you can listen here:</div>
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Hibbing and his colleagues make an intriguing argument in their latest paper, but what's truly fascinating is what happened next. Twenty-six different scholars or groups of scholars then got an opportunity to tee off on the paper, firing off a variety of responses. But as Hibbing and colleagues note in their final reply, out of those responses, "22 or 23 accept the general idea" of a conservative negativity bias, and simply add commentary to aid in the process of "modifying it, expanding on it, specifying where it does and does not work," and so on. Only about three scholars or groups of scholars seem to reject the idea entirely.</div>
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That's pretty extraordinary, when you think about it. After all, one of the teams of commenters includes New York University social psychologist John Jost, who drew considerable political ire in 2003 when he and his colleagues published a <a href="http://faculty.virginia.edu/haidtlab/jost.glaser.political-conservatism-as-motivated-social-cog.pdf" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">synthesis of existing psychological studies on ideology</a>, suggesting that conservatives are characterized by traits such as a <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781444344073.ch1/summary" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">need for certainty</a> and an <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF02686907" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">intolerance of ambiguity</a>. Now, writing in <em>Behavioral and Brain Sciences</em> in response to Hibbing roughly a decade later, Jost and fellow scholars note that</div>
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<i>There is by now evidence from a variety of laboratories around the world using a variety of methodological techniques leading to the virtually inescapable conclusion that the cognitive-motivational styles of leftists and rightists are quite different. This research consistently finds that conservatism is positively associated with heightened epistemic concerns for order, structure, closure, certainty, consistency, simplicity, and familiarity, as well as existential concerns such as perceptions of danger, sensitivity to threat, and death anxiety. </i>[Italics added]</div>
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Back in 2003, Jost and his team were blasted by <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2003/07/31/closure_on_nuance/page/full" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Ann Coulter</a>, <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/georgewill/2003/08/10/conservative_psychosis/page/full" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">George Will</a>, and <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/207712/conservatives-are-crazy-study/byron-york" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><em>National Review</em></a> for saying this; congressional Republicans began <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/207712/conservatives-are-crazy-study/byron-york" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">probing</a> into their research grants; and they got lots of hate mail. But what's clear is that today, they've more or less triumphed. They won a field of converts to their view and sparked a wave of new research, including the work of Hibbing and his team.</div>
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"One possibility," note the authors, "is that a strong negativity bias was extremely useful in the Pleistocene," when it would have been super-helpful in preventing you from getting killed.</div>
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Granted, there are still many issues yet to be worked out in the science of ideology. Most of the commentaries on the new Hibbing paper are focused on important but not-paradigm-shifting side issues, such as the question of how conservatives can have a higher negativity bias, and yet not have neurotic personalities. (Actually, if anything, the research <a href="http://sites.duke.edu/niou/files/2011/06/gerber-huber-etal.pdf" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-style: dotted; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">suggests</a> that liberals may be the more neurotic bunch.) Indeed, conservatives tend to have a high degree of happiness and life satisfaction. But Hibbing and colleagues find no contradiction here. Instead, they paraphrase two other scholarly commentators (Matt Motyl of the University of Virginia and Ravi Iyer of the University of Southern California), who note that "successfully monitoring and attending negative features of the environment, as conservatives tend to do, may be just the sort of tractable task…that is more likely to lead to a fulfilling and happy life than is a constant search for new experience after new experience."</div>
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All of this matters, of course, because we still operate in politics and in media as if minds can be changed by the best honed arguments, the most compelling facts. And yet if our political opponents are simply perceiving the world differently, that idea starts to crumble. Out of the rubble just might arise a better way of acting in politics that leads to less dysfunction and less gridlock…thanks to science.</div>
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CHRIS MOONEY</a></h3>
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Chris Mooney is the author of four books, including the <em>New York Times</em> bestselling <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Republican-War-Science-Chris-Mooney/dp/B000WCNU44/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-style: none none dotted; color: black; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Republican War on Science</a></em>. He was a science journalist and podcaster for <em>Mother Jones</em> and host of<em> Climate Desk Live</em> from 2012 to 2014. He is now a staff writer at <em>The Washington Post</em>.</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-35108535043401481532015-12-27T18:36:00.000-08:002015-12-27T18:36:54.642-08:00WHAT WAS DARWIN'S ALGORITHM?<br />
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<em style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 14px;">To arrive at the edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.</em><br />
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<b><br /></b><span class="field-content topic" style="float: left; margin-right: 3px;"><b><a href="http://edge.org/conversations" style="color: #822209; font-size: 1em !important; text-decoration: none;">CONVERSATION</a> : <a href="http://edge.org/conversations/topic/LIFE" style="color: #822209; font-size: 1em !important; text-decoration: none;">LIFE</a></b></span></h3>
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<br /><a href="http://edge.org/conversation/john_brockman-part-four-what-was-darwins-algorithm" target="_blank">Part Four WHAT WAS DARWIN'S ALGORITHM?</a></h2>
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<span class="views-field views-field-field-byline" style="font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: 600;"><span class="field-content"></span></span><span class="views-field views-field-field-edge-author" style="font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: 600;"><span class="field-content"><span class="member-name"><a href="http://edge.org/memberbio/john_brockman" style="color: #822209; font-size: 1em !important; text-decoration: none;">John Brockman</a></span></span> </span><span class="views-field views-field-field-date" style="font-size: 1.2em; font-weight: 600;">[5.1.96]</span></div>
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The synthetic path to investigating the world is the logical space occupied by the physicist Murray Gell-Mann, the biologist Stuart Kauffman, the computer scientist Christopher G. Langton, and the physicist J. Doyne Farmer, and their colleagues in and around Los Alamos and the Santa Fe Institute.</div>
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The Santa Fe Institute was founded in 1984 by a group that included Gell-Mann, then at the California Institute of Technology, and the Los Alamos chemist George Cowan. Some say it came into being as a haven for bored physicists. Indeed, the end of the reductionist program in physics may well be an epistemological demise, in which the ultimate question is neither asked nor answered but instead the terms of the inquiry are transformed. This is what is happening in Santa Fe.</div>
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Murray Gell-Mann, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest particle physicists of the century (another being his late Caltech colleague, Richard Feynman), received a Nobel Prize for work in the 1950s and 1960s leading up to his proposal of the quark model. At a late stage in his career, he has turned to the study of complex adaptive systems.</div>
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The synthetic path to investigating the world is the logical space occupied by the physicist Murray Gell-Mann, the biologist Stuart Kauffman, the computer scientist Christopher G. Langton, and the physicist J. Doyne Farmer, and their colleagues in and around Los Alamos and the Santa Fe Institute.</div>
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The Santa Fe Institute was founded in 1984 by a group that included Gell-Mann, then at the California Institute of Technology, and the Los Alamos chemist George Cowan. Some say it came into being as a haven for bored physicists. Indeed, the end of the reductionist program in physics may well be an epistemological demise, in which the ultimate question is neither asked nor answered but instead the terms of the inquiry are transformed. This is what is happening in Santa Fe.</div>
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Murray Gell-Mann, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest particle physicists of the century (another being his late Caltech colleague, Richard Feynman), received a Nobel Prize for work in the 1950s and 1960s leading up to his proposal of the quark model. At a late stage in his career, he has turned to the study of complex adaptive systems.</div>
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Gell-Mann's model of the world is based on information; he connects the reductionist, fundamental laws of physics — the simple rules — with the complexity that emerges from those rules and with what he terms "frozen accidents" — that is, historical happenstance. He has given a name to this activity: "plectics," which is the study of simplicity and complexity as it is manifested not just in nature but in such phenomena as language and economics. At the institute, he provides encouragement, experience, prestige, and his vast reservoir of scientific knowledge to a younger group of colleagues, who are mostly involved in developing computational models based on simple rules that allow the emergence of complex behavior.</div>
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Stuart Kauffman is a theoretical biologist who studies the origin of life and the origins of molecular organization. Twenty- five years ago, he developed the Kauffman models, which are random networks exhibiting a kind of self-organization that he terms "order for free." Kauffman is not easy. His models are rigorous, mathematical, and, to many of his colleagues, somewhat difficult to understand. A key to his worldview is the notion that convergent rather than divergent flow plays the deciding role in the evolution of life. With his colleague Christopher G. Langton, he believes that the complex systems best able to adapt are those poised on the border between chaos and disorder.</div>
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Kauffman asks a question that goes beyond those asked by other evolutionary theorists: if selection is operating all the time, how do we build a theory that combines self-organization (order for free) and selection? The answer lies in a "new" biology, somewhat similar to that proposed by Brian Goodwin, in which natural selection is married to structuralism.</div>
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Christopher G. Langton has spent years studying evolution through the prism of computer programs. His work has focused on abstracting evolution from that upon which it acts. He has created "nature" in the computer, and his work has given rise to a new discipline called AL, or artificial life. This is the study of "virtual ecosystems," in which populations of simplified "animals" interact, reproduce, and evolve. Langton takes a bottom-up approach to the study of life, intelligence, and consciousness which resonates with the work of Marvin Minsky, Roger Schank, and Daniel C. Dennett. By vitalizing abstraction, Langton hopes to illuminate things about life that are not apparent in looking at life itself.</div>
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J. Doyne Farmer is one of the pioneers of what has come to be called chaos theory — the theory that explains why much of nature appears random even though it follows deterministic physical laws. It also shows how some random-seeming systems may have underlying order which makes them more predictable. He has explored the practical consequences of this, showing how the game of roulette can be beaten using physics; he has also started a company to beat the market by finding patterns in financial data.</div>
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Farmer was an Oppenheimer Fellow at the Center for Nonlinear Studies at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and later started the complex systems group, which came to include some of the rising stars in the field, such as Chris Langton, Walter Fontana, and Steen Rasmussen. In addition to his work on chaos, he has made important theoretical contributions to other problems in complex systems, including machine learning, a model for the immune system, and the origin of life.</div>
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<a href="http://edge.org/conversation/toc" style="color: #822209; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-weight: 700;">Back to Contents</span></a></div>
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Excerpted from <a class="ext" href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0684823446/qid=913732847/sr=1-3/002-6796862-3062667" style="color: #822209; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><em>The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution</em></a><span class="ext" style="background: url("extlink.png") 100% 50% no-repeat; padding-right: 12px;"></span> by John Brockman (Simon & Schuster, 1995) . Copyright © 1995 by John Brockman. All rights reserved.</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-80594943238090958942015-12-27T18:14:00.000-08:002015-12-27T18:14:19.957-08:00Evolution as an algorithm (Part One)<br />
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<a href="http://www.counterbalance.org/evotheo/evolu2-frame.html" style="font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; font-size: xx-large;" target="_blank">Evolution as an algorithm</a></h2>
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While Monod characterised evolution in terms of its most basic features, <a class="aref" href="http://www.counterbalance.org/bio/dennett-body.html" style="color: #996600; font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">Daniel Dennett</a> has championed a conception of evolution at the next higher level of abstraction. He proposes that <a class="aref" href="http://www.counterbalance.org/biogloss/darwin-body.html" style="color: #996600; font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">Darwin</a>’s theory of <a class="aref" href="http://www.counterbalance.org/biogloss/natsel-body.html" style="color: #996600; font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">natural selection</a>should be thought of as an algorithm.<a href="http://www.counterbalance.org/evotheo/evolu2-ref034.html" style="color: #996600; font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;"><img align="bottom" alt="Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life 51." border="0" class="ftn" height="16" src="http://www.counterbalance.org/stdart/fn.gif" style="height: 15pt; vertical-align: middle;" width="11" /></a></div>
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Some features of the world can be satisfactorily described in terms of laws and equations. Newton’s inverse-square law of gravitation is a perfect example. Others require statistical descriptions. But a faithful abstraction of natural selection needs to capture its cumulative and temporal character. Algorithms do this in ways that differential equations cannot.</div>
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Unlike typical discoveries in the sciences, an algorithm once uncovered, is no longer up for debate. The closest analogue is with mathematical theorems. Once Pythagoras had developed his theorem relating the lengths of the sides of right triangles, it could not be undeveloped.<a href="http://www.counterbalance.org/evotheo/evolu2-ref035.html" style="color: #996600; font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;"><img align="bottom" alt="Although it could be reformulated for non-Euclidean geometries, etc." border="0" class="ftn" height="16" src="http://www.counterbalance.org/stdart/fn.gif" style="height: 15pt; vertical-align: middle;" width="11" /></a> There is much to be gained from thinking of natural selection in algorithmic terms, and it is as unlikely to be refuted as Pythagoras’ theorem. This is one more reason why Dennett refers to natural selection as ‘Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.’</div>
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It is once we start thinking of life in algorithmic terms, that the power of Darwin’s theory becomes shockingly clear. It is a matter of common experience that offspring inherit traits from their parents, and that no two descendants are completely alike. Darwin recognised that whichever offspring had been born with variations that were somehow more profitable than its peers - however slight these variations may be - they would pass on these advantageous traits to more offspring than their less advantaged contemporaries. The advantageous traits would then spread and become commonplace within the population. This kind of system lends itself to algorithmic modelling. Imagine two variables representing the fitness of ‘normal’ members of a species (variable a), and a mutant, b. The mutation is very minor, perhaps corresponding to a slight strengthening of teeth, giving b a 1% fitness advantage in cases where that strength is helpful. We are in the abstract world of mathematics and algorithms, so if b > a on average it is inevitable that b will continue to increase and the number of b organisms will come to significantly outnumber the a organisms.<a href="http://www.counterbalance.org/evotheo/evolu2-ref036.html" style="color: #996600; font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;"><img align="bottom" alt="Note at this level of description there is no competition for finite resources and yet the mechanism of natural selection still operates." border="0" class="ftn" height="16" src="http://www.counterbalance.org/stdart/fn.gif" style="height: 15pt; vertical-align: middle;" width="11" /></a> The only question is how many generation it will take. The new fitness value for the overall population will have become normalized at 101% compared to where we started. The stage is now set for the eventual emergence of another beneficial mutation that will see the whole species renormalized to a still higher value of fitness. Of course, neutral mutations and deleterious mutations will occur as well, but at the simplistic level of description provided here, these have essentially no net effect because beneficial mutations are inherited more often - by definition, and therefore inevitably overwhelm the non-beneficial mutations.</div>
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Importantly, at this level of description there is no difference between so-called ‘micro’ and ‘macro evolution.’ While common sense allows that descendents with stronger teeth may come to outnumber those with weak teeth (micro-evolution), when viewed in abstract algorithmic terms, the same mechanism accounts for any adaptation <i>whatsoever</i>, including macro-evolutionary changes. Darwin was quite correct to observe “I can see no limit to this power”<a href="http://www.counterbalance.org/evotheo/evolu2-ref037.html" style="color: #996600; font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;"><img align="bottom" alt="Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection: Or, the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985) 443. See also 168." border="0" class="ftn" height="16" src="http://www.counterbalance.org/stdart/fn.gif" style="height: 15pt; vertical-align: middle;" width="11" /></a> and conclude that it could serve to drive <a class="aref" href="http://www.counterbalance.org/reading/origi-body.html" style="color: #996600; font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">the origin of species</a>.</div>
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However loudly Darwin’s critics protest, this level of explanation of adaptation is powerful and irrefutable. Dennett is correct to claim natural selection is about as likely to be refuted as is a return to a pre-<a class="aref" href="http://www.counterbalance.org/physgloss/copern-body.html" style="color: #996600; font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">Copernican</a> geocentric view of the <a class="aref" href="http://www.counterbalance.org/physgloss/cosmos-body.html" style="color: #996600; font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;">cosmos</a>.<a href="http://www.counterbalance.org/evotheo/evolu2-ref038.html" style="color: #996600; font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;"><img align="bottom" alt="Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life 20." border="0" class="ftn" height="16" src="http://www.counterbalance.org/stdart/fn.gif" style="height: 15pt; vertical-align: middle;" width="11" /></a> Once understood, the idea is so obvious as to be self-evident.</div>
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Unfortunately, its immense explanatory power and irrefutable nature is also its Achilles’ heel. Expressed in the abstract terms laid out so far it can explain <i>any and every </i>adaptation; we have not specified the interval between generations, so by default the value of b reaches infinity almost immediately, as does the population of b organisms. In order to serve as an explanation for adaptations in terrestrial biology, the algorithm of natural selection needs to be properly ‘parameterised.’ The same holds true for Newton’s ‘f = ma.’ This formula tells us nothing useful about an actual event in the world until parameters of force, mass or acceleration are known.</div>
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In evolution, specifying parameters is no easy task. Real-world populations compete for multiple resources, and lives are lived out in specific but changing environments. One of the key parameters is the net effect of natural selection. Since it is not the only force acting on populations, depending on the parameters that are plugged into the algorithm, it is possible that other factors could overwhelm it temporarily, or even in the long run. However, if on average, it has the slightest net effect, natural selection will serve as a possible explanation for any adaptation (in fact, <i>every</i> adaptation) that is logically possible in any given environment.</div>
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The present situation is one where the mechanism and <i>theoretical </i>power of natural selection is not in doubt, but its place within an account of the actual terrestrial biological history is dependent upon it being correctly parameterised and placed within a larger model of the 3.8 billion year history of life on Earth.<a href="http://www.counterbalance.org/evotheo/evolu2-ref039.html" style="color: #996600; font-family: verdana, arial, 'sans serif'; line-height: normal; text-decoration: none;"><img align="bottom" alt="See S. Conway Morris, Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 108." border="0" class="ftn" height="16" src="http://www.counterbalance.org/stdart/fn.gif" style="height: 15pt; vertical-align: middle;" width="11" /></a></div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-41276196865010476832015-11-29T19:35:00.000-08:002015-11-30T19:31:26.042-08:00Carl Sagan on Humility, Science as a Tool of Democracy, and the Value of Uncertainty<br />
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<h1 class="entry-title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #262626; font-family: fira-sans, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 2.25em; font-stretch: inherit; font-weight: 200; line-height: 1em; margin: -3px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="background: rgb(255, 219, 0); border: 0px; box-shadow: rgb(255, 219, 0) -10px 0px 0px, rgb(255, 219, 0) 10px 0px 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; left: 10px; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/11/09/carl-sagan-science-democracy/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Carl Sagan on Humility, Science as a Tool of Democracy, and the Value of Uncertainty</a></span></h1>
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“Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge… It can tell us when we’re being lied to. It provides a mid-course correction to our mistakes.”</h2>
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<h2 style="border-bottom-color: rgb(217, 217, 217); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; font-family: fira-sans, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.25em; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.4em; margin: 1.25em 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 1.5em 40px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span style="color: #b3b3b3; font-family: , sans-serif , "arial"; font-size: 0.75em; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; letter-spacing: 0.1em; line-height: 1.25em; text-transform: uppercase;">BY MARIA POPOVA</span></h2>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345409469/braipick-20" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img class="cover" height="297" src="https://i1.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/demonhauntedworld_sagan.jpg?w=680" style="border: 0px; display: block; float: right; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0.7em 0px 0.7em 40px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: 200px;" width="200" /></a><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">“Without science, democracy is impossible,”</em> Bertrand Russell wrote in his foundational 1926 treatise on <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/02/21/education-and-the-good-life-bertrand-russell/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">education and the good life</a>. Three generations later,<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Carl Sagan</span> (November 9, 1934–December 20, 1996) — another one of our civilization’s most inspired minds and greatest champions of reason — picked up where Russell left off to make an elegant case for the humanizing power of science, its vitality to democracy, and how applying the scientific way of thinking to everyday life refines our intellectual and moral integrity.</div>
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345409469/braipick-20" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><img height="536" src="https://i2.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/carlsagan1.jpg?w=680" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="646" /></a></div>
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In his 1995 masterwork <span style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: 0px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345409469/braipick-20" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark</a> </em></span>(<a href="http://www.worldcat.org/title/demon-haunted-world-science-as-a-candle-in-the-dark/oclc/32855551&referer=brief_results" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">public library</em></a>) — the source of his indispensable <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/01/03/baloney-detection-kit-carl-sagan/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Baloney Detection Kit</a> — Sagan writes:</div>
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Avoidable human misery is more often caused not so much by stupidity as by ignorance, particularly our ignorance about ourselves… Whenever our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused, in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism is bubbling up around us — then, habits of thought familiar from ages past reach for the controls.</div>
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The true power of science, Sagan suggests, lies not in feeding into our culture’s addiction to simplistic and ready-made answers but in its methodical dedication to asking what Hannah Arendt called the <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/16/hannah-arendt-the-life-of-the-mind/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“unanswerable questions” that make us human</a>, then devising tools for testing their proposed answers:</div>
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There is much that science doesn’t understand, many mysteries still to be resolved. In a Universe tens of billions of light-years across and some ten or fifteen billion years old, this may be the case forever.</div>
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[…]</div>
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Science is far from a perfect instrument of knowledge. It’s just the best we have. In this respect, as in many others, it’s like democracy. Science by itself cannot advocate courses of human action, but it can certainly illuminate the possible consequences of alternative courses of action.</div>
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The scientific way of thinking is at once imaginative and disciplined. This is central to its success. Science invites us to let the facts in, even when they don’t conform to our preconceptions. It counsels us to carry alternative hypotheses in our heads and see which best fit the facts. It urges on us a delicate balance between no-holds-barred openness to new ideas, however heretical, and the most rigorous skeptical scrutiny of everything — new ideas and established wisdom. This kind of thinking is also an essential tool for a democracy in an age of change.</div>
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<figure class="wp-caption aligncenter" id="attachment_49569" style="background: rgb(230, 230, 230); border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0.8em 0px 1.5em; padding: 20px 20px 5px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/10/14/louis-i-king-of-the-sheep-olivier-tallec/" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Art by Olivier Tallec from Louis I, King of the Sheep" class="size-full wp-image-49569" height="315" src="https://i2.wp.com/www.brainpickings.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/louisi_tallec00.jpg?resize=600%2C315" style="border: 0px; display: block; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; height: auto; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px auto; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="600" /></a><figcaption class="wp-caption-text" style="border: 0px; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: fira-sans; font-size: 0.9em; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: 1.7em; margin: 0px; padding: 10px 0px 5px; vertical-align: baseline;">Art by Olivier Tallec from <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/10/14/louis-i-king-of-the-sheep-olivier-tallec/" style="border: 0px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Louis I, King of the Sheep</em></a></figcaption></figure><br />
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The scientific way of thinking, Sagan asserts, counters <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/04/24/jacob-bronowski-ascent-of-man-knowledge-certainty/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">our perilous compulsion for certainty</a> with systematic assurance that uncertainty is the only arrow of progress and error the only catalyst of growth:</div>
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Humans may crave absolute certainty; they may aspire to it; they may pretend, as partisans of certain religions do, to have attained it. But the history of science — by far the most successful claim to knowledge accessible to humans — teaches that the most we can hope for is successive improvement in our understanding, learning from our mistakes, an asymptotic approach to the Universe, but with the proviso that absolute certainty will always elude us.</div>
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We will always be mired in error. The most each generation can hope for is to reduce the error bars a little, and to add to the body of data to which error bars apply. The error bar is a pervasive, visible self-assessment of the reliability of our knowledge.</div>
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In this continual self-assessment, Sagan argues, lies the singular potency of science as a tool for advancing society:</div>
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The reason science works so well is partly that built-in error-correcting machinery. There are no forbidden questions in science, no matters too sensitive or delicate to be probed, no sacred truths. That openness to new ideas, combined with the most rigorous, skeptical scrutiny of all ideas, sifts the wheat from the chaff. It makes no difference how smart, august, or beloved you are. You must prove your case in the face of determined, expert criticism. Diversity and debate are valued. Opinions are encouraged to contend — substantively and in depth.</div>
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[…]</div>
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Science is part and parcel humility. Scientists do not seek to impose their needs and wants on Nature, but instead humbly interrogate Nature and take seriously what they find. We are aware that revered scientists have been wrong. We understand human imperfection. We insist on independent and — to the extent possible — quantitative verification of proposed tenets of belief. We are constantly prodding, challenging, seeking contradictions or small, persistent residual errors, proposing alternative explanations, encouraging heresy. We give our highest rewards to those who convincingly disprove established beliefs.</div>
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Embracing this ethos is an exercise in willingly refining our intellectual and ideological imperfections. Sagan captures this with elegant simplicity:</div>
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Valid criticism does you a favor.</div>
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He returns to the greatest promise of science as fertilizer for intellectual and spiritual growth, a democratic tool of social change, and a framework for civilizational advancement:</div>
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Science is a way to call the bluff of those who only pretend to knowledge. It is a bulwark against mysticism, against superstition, against religion misapplied to where it has no business being. If we’re true to its values, it can tell us when we’re being lied to. It provides a mid-course correction to our mistakes.</div>
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[…]</div>
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Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion and bamboozle requires vigilance, dedication, and courage. But if we don’t practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us.</div>
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Complement the enduringly elevating <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345409469/braipick-20" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 700; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Demon-Haunted World</em></span></a> with Sagan on<a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/12/20/carl-sagan-varieties-of-scientific-experience/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">science and spirituality</a>, <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/05/23/carl-sagan-the-burden-of-skepticism/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the vital balance between skepticism and openness</a>, his<a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/07/11/carl-sagan-reading-list/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">reading list</a>, and this wonderful <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/12/10/pale-blue-dot-motion-graphics/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">animated adaptation</a> of his famous <em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Pale Blue Dot</em>monologue, then revisit cosmologist Lisa Randall on <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2015/10/19/lisa-randall-knocking-on-heavens-door/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">the crucial difference in how art, religion, and science explain the universe</a> and Neil deGrasse Tyson’s <a href="https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/11/13/neil-degrasse-tyson-and-ann-druyan-on-carl-sagan/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(225, 155, 155); border-bottom-style: solid; border-width: 0px 0px 1px; color: #c33737; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">touching remembrance of Sagan</a>.</div>
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<br />NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-75107915954659267552015-10-09T18:20:00.002-07:002015-10-09T18:20:50.928-07:00Machines do not think - The Contradiction with Autonomous Systems<a href="http://a.academia-assets.com/images/academia-logo-redesign-2015.svg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><img alt="Academia logo redesign 2015" border="0" class="Logo" src="http://a.academia-assets.com/images/academia-logo-redesign-2015.svg" style="height: 18px; width: 146px;" /></span></a><br />
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<span itemprop="name" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.academia.edu/3851407/Machines_do_not_think_-_The_Contradiction_with_Autonomous_Systems" target="_blank">Machines do not think - The Contradiction with Autonomous Systems</a></span></span></h2>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: #a77a41; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">‘<span style="font-size: small;">Autonomy’ is currently a buzz-word for unmanned systems and is wrongly used throughout the robotic community without differentiating or even providing a deeper understanding of what the term actually implies. To make matters worse, civil industry, military and even the public have a varying perception of autonomy.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: #a77a41; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"> JAPCC Flyer on Autonomous Systems November 2012</span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #231f20;">“</span><span style="color: #231f20;">In three years, Cyberdyne will become the largest supplier of military computer systems. All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully un</span><span style="color: #231f20;">manned. Afterwards, they </span><span style="color: #231f20;">fl</span><span style="color: #231f20;">y with a perfect operational </span><span style="color: #231f20;">record. The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes </span><span style="color: #231f20;">online on August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed </span><span style="color: #231f20;">from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware 2:14 AM, Eastern time,</span><span style="color: #231f20;"> </span><span style="color: #231f20;">August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.” </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><i><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><b>Quote taken from the movie ‘Terminator 2 – Judgment Day’</b></span></i></span></div>
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<span style="border-image-outset: initial; border-image-repeat: initial; border-image-slice: initial; border-image-source: initial; border-image-width: initial; border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #231f20; line-height: 16px;"> </span><span style="color: #231f20;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="line-height: 16px;">To overcome current limitations of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), more and more automatic functions have been and will be implemented in current and future UAS systems. In the civil arena, the use of highly automated robotic systems is already quite common, e.g. in the manufacturing sector. But what is commonly accepted in the civilian community maybe a significant challenge when applied to military weapon systems. Calling a manufacturing robot ‘autonomous’ can be done without causing intense fear </span></span><span style="line-height: 16px;">among</span><span style="color: black;"><span style="line-height: 16px;"> the public. On the other hand, the </span></span></span><span style="color: #231f20; line-height: 16px;">public</span><span style="color: #231f20; line-height: 16px;"> vision of an autonomous unmanned aircraft is that of a self-thinking killing machine as depicted by James Cameron in his Terminator science fiction movies.</span><span style="color: #231f20; line-height: 16px;"> </span><span style="color: #231f20; line-height: 16px;">This then raises the question of what an autonomous system actually is and what differentiates it from an automatic system.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Autonomous in philosophical terms is defined as the possession or right to self-government, self-ruling or self-determination. Other synonyms linked to autonomy are independence and sovereignty.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The word itself derives from the Greek language, meaning literally ‘having its own law’. Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher of the 18th century, defined autonomy as the capacity to deliberate and to decide based on a self-given moral law.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">of Standards and Technology (NIST) defines a fully autonomous system as being capable of accomplishing its assigned mission, within a defined scope, without human intervention while adapting to operational and environmental conditions.Furthermore, it defines a semi-autonomous system as being capable of performing autonomous operations with various levels of human interaction.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Most people have an understanding of the term ‘autonomous’only in the philosophical sense. A good example of the contradiction between public perception and technical definition is that of a simple car navigation system. After entering a destination address as the only human interaction, the system will determine the best path depending on the given parameters, i.e. take the shortest way or the one with the lowest fuel consumption. It will alter the route without human interaction if an obstacle (e.g. traffic jam) makes it necessary or if the driver turns the wrong way. Therefore, the car navigation system is technically autonomous, but no one would call it that because of the commonly perceived philosophical definition of the term.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #231f20;">Because of this common understanding of the term ‘autonomous’, the public’s willingness to accept highly complex autonomous weapon systems will most likely be very low. Furthermore, the decision to use aggressive names for some </span></span></span><span style="color: #231f20;">unmanned military aircraft will undermine the possibility</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="color: #231f20;">of acceptance. Since it is unlikely that the public’s perception of the classic definition of the term ‘autonomous’ will change, we must change the technical definition of what the so called ‘autonomous’ systems really are. Even if a system appears to behave autonomously, it is only an automated system, because it is strictly bound to its given set of rules, as broad as they might be and / or as complex the system is.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #231f20;">Calling a system autonomous in the way Immanuel Kant defines Autonomy would imply the system is responsible for its own decisions and actions. This thought may be ridiculous at the first glance, but based on this premise some important aspects of future UAS development should be considered very carefully. How should a highly automated system react if it is attacked? Should it use only defensive measures or should it engage the attacker with lethal force? Who is legally responsible for combat actions if performed automatically without human interaction?International Law on Armed Conflict has no chapters concerning autonomous or automated weapon systems. </span><span style="color: #231f20;">Fortunately</span><span style="color: #231f20;">, there is no need for change as long as unmanned systems adhere to the same rules that apply to manned assets.</span><span style="color: #231f20;"> </span><span style="color: #231f20;">This implies that there is always a human in the loop to make a final legal assessment and decision if and how to engage a target. Although software may identify targets based on a given pattern which can be </span><span style="color: #231f20;">digitized</span><span style="color: #231f20;"> into </span><span style="color: #231f20;">recognizable </span><span style="color: #231f20;">patterns and figures, it cannot cope with the legal aspects of armed combat which not only require a deeper understanding of the Laws of Armed Conflict but also consideration of ethical and moral factors.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: #a77a41; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace; font-size: large;">Conclusion</span></span></h3>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #231f20;"> </span><span style="color: #231f20;">The current stage of technology is far from building </span><span style="color: #231f20;">autonomous</span><span style="color: #231f20;"> systems in the way it is literally defined and it’s </span><span style="color: #231f20;">doubtful</span><span style="color: #231f20;"> this level of development will be reached in the near term.</span><span style="color: #231f20;"> </span><span style="color: #231f20;">The approach to create a technical definition, separate from the</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #231f20;">one that already exists that is based on the classic, commonly used one will only cause confusion.</span><span style="color: #231f20;"> </span><span style="color: #231f20;">Therefore, the current use of the technical term ‘autonomous’ should be changed to the term ‘automated’ to avoid misunderstandings and to assure the use of the same set of terms as a basis for future comprehension. The definition of automated could be subdivided into several levels of automation, which </span><span style="color: #231f20;">i</span><span style="color: #231f20;">ncludes fully automated as the top level definition. This would be used for highly complex systems which are incorrectly </span><span style="color: #231f20;">called ‘autonomous’ today. </span><span style="color: #231f20;">But even fully automated systems must have human oversight and </span><span style="color: #231f20;">authorization</span><span style="color: #231f20;"> to engage with live ammunition. Due to ethical and legal principles, decision making and responsibility must not be shifted from man to machine, unless we want to risk a ‘Terminator’ like scenario.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><span style="color: #1b5e9e;">1. Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://www.iep.utm.edu/autonomy/).</span><span style="color: #1b5e9e;">2. ‘Critique of Practical Reason’, Immanuel Kant.</span><span style="color: #1b5e9e;">3. National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce(http://www.nist.gov/el/isd/ks/upload/NISTSP_1011-I-2-0.pd</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span style="font-family: ff5, Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><span style="font-variant: normal;">article by Maj
André Haider</span></b></span></span></span></span></div>
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Army UCAV SME, Combat Air Branch Joint Air Power Competence Centre</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="border: none; display: inline-block; padding: 0in;"><span style="font-family: Open Sans, Helvetica Neue, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: ff4, Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">Maj
André Haider is an Artillery o</span><span style="font-family: ff4, Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">ffi</span><span style="font-family: ff4, Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">cer
in the German Army with over </span><span style="font-family: ff4, Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">fi</span><span style="font-family: ff4, Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">fteen
years’ experience in command & control and operational
</span><span style="font-family: ff4, Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">planning.
His</span><span style="font-family: ff4, Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">
last post was Deputy Commander of the Ger-man Army’s MLRS Rocket
Artillery Battalion andhe is currently assigned to the Joint Air
</span><span style="font-family: ff4, Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">Power
Competence</span><span style="font-family: ff4, Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">
Centre as an Unmanned Systems Subject Matter Exper</span><span style="color: #231f20;"><span style="font-family: ff3, Verdana, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;">t</span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-53469534543119078242015-08-17T08:41:00.000-07:002015-08-17T08:41:15.904-07:00Extraordinary Claims Do Not Require Extraordinary Evidence<h2>
<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Psychology Today</span></a></h2>
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<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201103/do-extraordinary-claims-require-extraordinary-evidence" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Do Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Evidence?</a></h2>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Politically incorrect claims require impossible evidence</span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: 12.96px;">P</span>ost published by Satoshi Kanazawa on Mar 20, 2011 in <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; text-decoration: none; word-wrap: break-word;">The Scientific Fundamentalist</a></div>
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The answer: No.</div>
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Carl Sagan is credited with popularizing the dictum “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” during an episode of his groundbreaking TV series <em>Cosmos.</em> While it is a nice dictum in principle, it does not work in practice.</div>
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The dictum has recently been revived and is currently in frequent use, after the Cornell psychologist Daryl J. Bem published his paper “Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on <a class="inline-links topic-link" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/cognition" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; padding-bottom: 2px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s; word-wrap: break-word;" title="Psychology Today looks at Cognition">Cognition</a> and Affect” in the <em>Journal of <a class="inline-links topic-link" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/personality" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; padding-bottom: 2px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s; word-wrap: break-word;" title="Psychology Today looks at Personality">Personality</a> and Social Psychology</em>. The paper presents evidence, collected from nine separate experiments, for precognition, an ability to sense the future state of the world before it happens. The paper went through the same process of rigorous peer review as any other submission to <em>JPSP</em>, which is one of the leading journals in social and personality psychology, and was published because it satisfied the reviewers and the editors of the <em>Journal.</em> Yet Bem’s critics claim that his paper should have been held to a higher standard of evidence because his claim that humans possess extrasensory perception (ESP) is extraordinary. The critics invoke Sagan’s dictum “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” in their own claim that Bem’s paper should not have been published.</div>
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The problem with the dictum is that there are no absolute criteria for what counts as “extraordinary claims.” In particular, what counts as extraordinary depends <em>entirely</em>on what you know and believe. In the extreme case, if you know nothing, then<em>everything</em> is an extraordinary claim. As the comedian Elayne Boosler used to quip, “Popcorn is magic if you don’t know how it happens.”</div>
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Even less extremely, whether a given scientific claim counts as extraordinary depends entirely on what you know and believe. The same claim can be extraordinary for some but not for others. I personally don’t believe that, given what we know from quantum mechanics, Bem’s claim of precognition – that human cognition and affect can be influenced by future events – is particularly extraordinary. What is extraordinary is quantum mechanics, not precognition, yet quantum mechanics is a well-accepted (if poorly comprehended) part of modern physics.</div>
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Worse, what counts as extraordinary depends also on the scientific fads and fashion of the time. The claims of <a class="inline-links topic-link" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/race-and-ethnicity" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; padding-bottom: 2px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s; word-wrap: break-word;" title="Psychology Today looks at race">race</a> and <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/200901/why-men-are-more-intelligent-women" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; transition: color 0.2s; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">sex differences in intelligence</a> were not at all extraordinary a hundred years ago. They are considered to be extremely extraordinary today, requiring extraordinary evidence. They will no longer be extraordinary in a hundred (or, hopefully, five) years from now.</div>
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The biggest problem with the dictum “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” is that it is often and usually used politically. It is used too often to silence and censor politically incorrect claims that people do not like. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” often transforms into “Politically incorrect claims require extraordinary (and impossible) evidence.” <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201012/it-s-only-good-science-if-the-message-is-politically-corre" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: black; transition: color 0.2s; word-wrap: break-word;" target="_blank">As Robert Kurzban notes</a>, this is the major reason <a class="inline-links topic-link" href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/evolutionary-psychology" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.2s; background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border-bottom-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; padding-bottom: 2px; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.2s; word-wrap: break-word;" title="Psychology Today looks at evolutionary psychology">evolutionary psychology</a> is often held to higher standards of evidence.</div>
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It is perfectly fine to hold evolutionary psychology (or any other scientific field) to higher standards of evidence, <em>as long as all other fields are held to identical standards.</em> The required level of evidentiary standards cannot depend on the conclusion or the contents of the claims, especially, on how politically correct or popular they are. Until or unless we can derive an absolutely objective definition of what counts as an extraordinary claim, science will fare better if we all forget about Sagan’s dictum and hold all scientific claims to identically high standards of evidence.</div>
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<br />NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-8350855099536672442014-10-10T12:24:00.003-07:002014-10-10T12:24:43.266-07:00Cynical? You may be hurting your brain health<br />
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<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/"><img alt="ScienceDaily: Your source for the latest research news" border="0" height="66" src="http://www.sciencedaily.com/images/scidaily-logo.png" width="250" /></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/07/140730161525.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Cynical? You may be hurting your brain health</a></h1>
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Date:</div>
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May 28, 2014</div>
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Source:</div>
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American Academy of Neurology</div>
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Summary:</div>
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People with high levels
of cynical distrust may be more likely to develop dementia, according to
a new study. Cynical distrust, which is defined as the belief that
others are mainly motivated by selfish concerns, has been associated
with other health problems, such as heart disease. This is the first
study to look at the relationship between cynicism and dementia.</div>
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Frowning man (stock
image). New research suggests that people with high levels of cynical
distrust may be more likely to develop dementia.</div>
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<em>Credit: © bst2012 / Fotolia</em></div>
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People with
high levels of cynical distrust may be more likely to develop dementia,
according to a study published in the May 28, 2014, online issue of <em>Neurology</em>®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.</div>
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Cynical distrust, which is defined as the belief that others are
mainly motivated by selfish concerns, has been associated with other
health problems, such as heart disease. This is the first study to look
at the relationship between cynicism and dementia.<br />
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"These results add to the evidence that people's view on life and
personality may have an impact on their health," said study author
Anna-Maija Tolppanen, PhD, of the University of Eastern Finland in
Kuopio. "Understanding how a personality trait like cynicism affects
risk for dementia might provide us with important insights on how to
reduce risks for dementia."<br />
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For the study, 1,449 people with an average age of 71 were given
tests for dementia and a questionnaire to measure their level of
cynicism. The questionnaire has been shown to be reliable, and people's
scores tend to remain stable over periods of several years. People are
asked how much they agree with statements such as "I think most people
would lie to get ahead," "It is safer to trust nobody" and "Most people
will use somewhat unfair reasons to gain profit or an advantage rather
than lose it." Based on their scores, participants were grouped in low,
moderate and high levels of cynical distrust.<br />
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A total of 622 people completed two tests for dementia, with the last
one an average of eight years after the study started. During that
time, 46 people were diagnosed with dementia. Once researchers adjusted
for other factors that could affect dementia risk, such as high blood
pressure, high cholesterol and smoking, people with high levels of
cynical distrust were three times more likely to develop dementia than
people with low levels of cynicism. Of the 164 people with high levels
of cynicism, 14 people developed dementia, compared to nine of the 212
people with low levels of cynicism.<br />
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The study also looked at whether people with high levels of cynicism
were more likely to die sooner than people with low levels of cynicism. A
total of 1,146 people were included in this part of the analysis, and
361 people died during the average of 10 years of follow-up. High
cynicism was initially associated with earlier death, but after
researchers accounted for factors such as socioeconomic status,
behaviors such as smoking and health status, there was no longer any
link between cynicism and earlier death.<br />
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<div id="story_source">
<strong>Story Source:</strong><br />
The above story is based on <a href="http://www.newswise.com/articles/cynical-you-may-be-hurting-your-brain-health" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials</a> provided by <a class="blue" href="http://www.aan.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><strong>American Academy of Neurology</strong></a>. <em>Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.</em><br />
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<strong>Journal Reference</strong>:<br />
<ol class="journal">
<li>Elisa Neuvonen,
Minna Rusanen,
Alina Solomon,
Tiia Ngandu,
Tiina Laatikainen,
Hilkka Soininen,
Miia Kivipelto,
and Anna-Maija Tolppanen. <strong>Late-life cynical distrust, risk of incident dementia, and mortality in a population-based cohort</strong>. <em>Neurology</em>, 2014 DOI: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000000528" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">10.1212/WNL.0000000000000528</a>
</li>
</ol>
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<div class="content" id="citation_mla" style="display: block;">
American
Academy of Neurology. "Cynical? You may be hurting your brain health."
ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 28 May 2014.
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-72157176438236494942014-09-27T14:01:00.001-07:002014-09-27T14:01:25.252-07:00<a href="http://www.theepochtimes.com/"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Epoch Times</span></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/757910-a-physicists-explanation-of-why-the-soul-may-exist/?sidebar=morein" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">A Physicist’s Explanation of Why the Soul May Exist</a></h2>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: OpenSans, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">By </span><a href="http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/author/tara-macisaac/" rel="author" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #26169b; font-family: OpenSans, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tara MacIsaac</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: OpenSans, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;">, </span><a href="http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/about-us.html/" rel="publisher" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #26169b; font-family: OpenSans, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Epoch Times">Epoch Times</a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: OpenSans, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14px;"> | June 24, 2014</span><br />
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<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The universe is full of mysteries that challenge our current knowledge. In "Beyond Science" Epoch Times collects stories about these strange phenomena to stimulate the imagination and open up previously undreamed of possibilities. Are they true? You decide.</em></div>
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Henry P. Stapp is a theoretical physicist at the University of California–Berkeley who worked with some of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics. He does not seek to prove that the soul exists, but he does say that the existence of the soul fits within the laws of physics.</div>
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It is not true to say belief in the soul is unscientific, according to Stapp. Here the word “soul” refers to a personality independent of the brain or the rest of the human body that can survive beyond death. In his paper, “Compatibility of Contemporary Physical Theory With Personality Survival,” he wrote: “Strong doubts about personality survival based solely on the belief that postmortem survival is incompatible with the laws of physics are unfounded.”</div>
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He works with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics—more or less the interpretation used by some of the founders of quantum mechanics, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. Even Bohr and Heisenberg had some disagreements on how quantum mechanics works, and understandings of the theory since that time have also been diverse. Stapp’s paper on the Copenhagen interpretation has been influential. It was written in the 1970s and Heisenberg wrote an appendix for it. </div>
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Stapp noted of his own concepts: “There has been no hint in my previous descriptions (or conception) of this orthodox quantum mechanics of any notion of personality survival.”</div>
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Why Quantum Theory Could Hint at Life After Death</h2>
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Stapp explains that the founders of quantum theory required scientists to essentially cut the world into two parts. Above the cut, classical mathematics could describe the physical processes empirically experienced. Below the cut, quantum mathematics describes a realm “which does not entail complete physical determinism.”</div>
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Of this realm below the cut, Stapp wrote: “One generally finds that the evolved state of the system below the cut cannot be matched to any conceivable classical description of the properties visible to observers.”</div>
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So how do scientists observe the invisible? They choose particular properties of the quantum system and set up apparatus to view their effects on the physical processes “above the cut.”</div>
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The key is the experimenter’s choice. When working with the quantum system, the observer’s choice has been shown to physically impact what manifests and can be observed above the cut. </div>
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Stapp cited Bohr’s analogy for this interaction between a scientist and his experiment results: “[It's like] a blind man with a cane: when the cane is held loosely, the boundary between the person and the external world is the divide between hand and cane; but when held tightly the cane becomes part of the probing self: the person feels that he himself extends to the tip of the cane.”</div>
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The physical and mental are connected in a dynamic way. In terms of the relationship between mind and brain, it seems the observer can hold in place a chosen brain activity that would otherwise be fleeting. This is a choice similar to the choice a scientist makes when deciding which properties of the quantum system to study. </div>
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The quantum explanation of how the mind and brain can be separate or different, yet connected by the laws of physics “is a welcome revelation,” wrote Stapp. “It solves a problem that has plagued both science and philosophy for centuries—the imagined science-mandated need either to equate mind with brain, or to make the brain dynamically independent of the mind.”</div>
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Stapp said it is not contrary to the laws of physics that the personality of a dead person may attach itself to a living person, as in the case of so-called spirit possession. It wouldn’t require any basic change in orthodox theory, though it would “require a relaxing of the idea that physical and mental events occur only when paired together.”</div>
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Classical physical theory can only evade the problem, and classical physicists can only work to discredit intuition as a product of human confusion, said Stapp. Science should instead, he said, recognize “the physical effects of consciousness as a physical problem that needs to be answered in dynamical terms.”</div>
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How This Understanding Affects the Moral Fabric of Society</h2>
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Furthermore, it is imperative for maintaining human morality to consider people as more than just machines of flesh and blood. </div>
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In another paper, titled “Attention, Intention, and Will in Quantum Physics,” Stapp wrote: ”It has become now widely appreciated that assimilation by the general public of this ‘scientific’ view, according to which each human being is basically a mechanical robot, is likely to have a significant and corrosive impact on the moral fabric of society.”</div>
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He wrote of the “growing tendency of people to exonerate themselves by arguing that it is not ‘I’ who is at fault, but some mechanical process within: ‘my genes made me do it’; or ‘my high blood-sugar content made me do it.’ Recall the infamous ‘Twinkie Defense’ that got Dan White off with five years for murdering San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.”</div>
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">SEE ALSO: <a href="http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/523100-your-thoughts-control-your-dna-biologist/" style="border: 0px; color: #c51d1d; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Your Thoughts Control Your DNA: Biologist</a></strong></div>
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<em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Follow @TaraMacIsaac on Twitter and visit the Epoch Times <a href="https://www.facebook.com/EpochTimesBeyondScience/timeline" style="border: 0px; color: #c51d1d; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">Beyond Science page on Facebook</a> to continue exploring the new frontiers of science!</em></div>
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<span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: xx-small; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: 600; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">*Conceptual image of the <a href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-169802639/stock-photo-geometry-of-the-soul-series-two-arrangement-of-human-profile-and-abstract-elements-on-the-subject.html?src=pp-same_artist-169802876-5" style="border: 0px; color: #c51d1d; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: none; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">soul</a> via Shutterstock</em></span></div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-52341973261966462932014-07-30T07:22:00.000-07:002014-07-30T07:22:11.001-07:00Why Humans Are Important to Studies of Primate Diversity <img alt="Scientific American" src="http://www.scientificamerican.com/sciam/includes/themes/sciam/images/logo.jpg" /><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2014/07/24/humans-among-the-primates/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Humans among the primates</a></span></h2>
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<span class="byline" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 5px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: nowrap;">By <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="author58" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Darren Naish</a> | </span><span class="datestamp" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: arial, sans-serif; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 5px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: nowrap;">July 24, 2014</span> <span style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">| <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2014/07/24/humans-among-the-primates/#respond" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" title="Comment on Humans among the primates"><img alt="Comments" class="iconComment" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/wp-content/themes/sciam/images/icon_comment_small.gif" style="background-color: transparent; border: none !important; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 4px 0px 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />77</a></span></div>
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<i style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of</i> Scientific American.</div>
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<br /><span id="emailThis" style="background-color: transparent; background-image: url(http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/wp-content/themes/sciam/images/email.gif); background-position: 0% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; border: 0px; float: left; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px !important; margin-top: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 14px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a class="overlay-controller" data-summary="It is not in the least bit controversial to picture humans* within the context of the placental mammal group that we belong to, the primates. Nor is it unusual for primatologists, anthropologists or biologists of other sorts to compare the anatomy, social or sexual behaviour, lifestyles or cognitive abilities of humans with those of other [...]" data-title="Humans among the primates" data-url="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2014/07/24/humans-among-the-primates/" href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2014/07/24/humans-among-the-primates/#" id="emailForm" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Email</a></span> <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2014/07/24/humans-among-the-primates/?print=true" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Print" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/wp-content/themes/sciam/images/print.gif" style="background-color: transparent; border: none !important; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" />Print</a></div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/primates-montage-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14381" height="329" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/primates-montage-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="primates-montage-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="600" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
A montage of modern primates. From left to right: human, tarsier, gorilla, bonobo, orangutan, crested gibbon, capuchin, macaque, lemur. Image by Darren Naish.</div>
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It is not in the least bit controversial to picture humans* within the context of the placental mammal group that we belong to, the primates. Nor is it unusual for primatologists, anthropologists or biologists of other sorts to compare the anatomy, social or sexual behaviour, lifestyles or cognitive abilities of humans with those of other primates (e.g., Morris 1967, Sarmiento 1995, 1998, de Waal 2002). Despite this, <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Homo sapiens</em> is often missed out or ignored when authors review the living primates of the world**, a perhaps understandable omission given that these works are about ‘other’ animals, but a misleading one given that it really helps to see the human lineage as part of the group; as an important and conspicuous part of primate diversity.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Desmond-Morris-Naked-Ape-cover-220-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14387" height="346" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Desmond-Morris-Naked-Ape-cover-220-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="Desmond-Morris-Naked-Ape-cover-220-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="220" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
It is neither novel nor innovative to compare humans with other primates. Here's the cover of a famous book that aimed to popularise a scenario of human evolution and biology.</div>
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* ‘Human’ as used throughout this article denotes <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Homo sapiens</em> alone. When <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">H. sapiens</em>and its extinct relatives are being referred to, the term ‘hominin’ is used.</div>
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** I should note that several books that cover primate diversity do include our species within the roster: <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0801857899?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creativeASIN=0801857899&linkCode=xm2&tag=tetrazoolo-21" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Walker’s <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Mammals of the World</em></a>does, so does <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1554079640?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creativeASIN=1554079640&linkCode=xm2&tag=tetrazoolo-21" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Redmond’s <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Primate Family Tree</em></a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0563551151?ie=UTF8&camp=1634&creativeASIN=0563551151&linkCode=xm2&tag=tetrazoolo-21" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Dunbar and Barrett’s <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Cousins: Our Primate Relatives</em></a>, for example.</div>
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In many respects, <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Homo sapiens</em> is an ‘extreme’ primate. Our vocal abilities, cultural diversity and application of technology (this includes the use of fire) exceeds that of other primates, and it can be argued that it is unparalleled technological innovation that has enabled us to pursue lifestyles – those involving agriculture, livestock management, or regular travel at sea, for example – that are so different relative to those of other primate species. In many respects, however, we aren’t unusual at all and fit within the broad spectrum of primate diversity: our substantial anatomical and cultural diversity is what we would predict for a widespread primate that occurs in numerous habitats, many of the anatomical and behavioural traits once considered unique to humans are not unique at all, and our social systems fit within the spectrum present in related primate species. [Images below by <a href="http://tropenmuseum.nl/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tropenmuseum of the Royal Tropical Institute</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag%C3%AAncia_Brasil" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Agência Brasil</a>.]</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/human-innovation-montage-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14421" height="358" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/human-innovation-montage-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="human-innovation-montage-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="600" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Technological innovation, the exploitation of other animals, and complex systems of planning, co-operation and management of territories have allowed humans to follow lifestyles not allowed to other primates. Clockwise from top left: complex land management, agriculture and the manipulation of plants; the crossing of water via boats and ships; the domestication and use of other animals, like these cattle; reliance on aquatic resources that are harvested with nets and other inventions. Clockwise from top left: Philippines rice terraces by unknown photographer ( licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic license); 1912-13 photo of Papuan people on Lorentz River by August Adriaan (licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Brazil license); traffic scene in Mumbai by Antônio Milena/ABr. (licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Brazil license); Mexican fisherman image by Régis Lachaume (in public domain).</div>
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In the following text, I want to explore just a few ideas that arise when we compare ourselves to our close relatives. The more we learn about primate biology, history and evolution, the smaller the gaps become between <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Homo sapiens</em> and other primate species, and the less unusual we appear. Indeed, most of our traditional ideas about human ‘uniqueness’ reflect the fact that the species that seemingly bridge the gap between us and our closest living relatives are extinct.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Zihlman-Bonobo-australopithecine-comparison-resized-Nov-2009-Oct-2012-280-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14401" height="646" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Zihlman-Bonobo-australopithecine-comparison-resized-Nov-2009-Oct-2012-280-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="Zihlman-Bonobo-australopithecine-comparison-resized-Nov-2009-Oct-2012-280-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="280" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Adrienne Zihlman and colleagues argued that Bonobos (Pan paniscus) represent a good morphological match for the African ape concestor: this diagram (from Zihlman 1984) combines Bonobo anatomy on the left with that of an australopithecine on the right.</div>
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Little discussed today is the fact that humans are unusual apes in that we’re actually proportioned more like monkeys. In fact, our superficially ‘monkey-like’ anatomy goes some way to explaining why the idea of a ‘pre-pongid’ divergence of the human lineage was so popular among anatomists prior to the molecular age (see Bowler 1987, Sarmiento 1998). The idea that living (non-human) apes are all somewhat specialised and thus different from whichever species were ancestral to the human lineage has often been mentioned, and as more fossil apes have been discovered it has become clear that hominids and hominid-like hominoids possessed a diversity of body plans, some of which were more ‘monkey-like’ than ‘ape-like’ (e.g., Moyà-Solà <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al</em>. 2004).</div>
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However, fossils show that hominins evolved from among a radiation of species with ‘ape-like’ proportions; the idea that the common ancestor of the whole African ape clade was Bonobo-like overall has been proposed (Zihlman <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al</em>. 1978), and data from australopithecines shows that some, at least, had ‘ape-like’ long forelimbs and proportionally short hindlimbs, though they didn’t have the same skeletal specialisations for climbing or knuckle-walking as extant African apes (McHenry & Berger 1998, Lovejoy <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al</em>. 2009, Berger 2013). The evolution of especially long hindlimbs and of forelimbs proportioned more like those of monkeys than apes are therefore hominin innovations evolved somewhere on the branch between certain australopithecine species and the earliest members of <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Homo</em>.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Let’s get it out of the way: apes are monkeys</strong></div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/primates-t-shirt-montage-350-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14391" height="407" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/primates-t-shirt-montage-350-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="primates-t-shirt-montage-350-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="350" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
If humans are apes, apes are monkeys. Image by Darren Naish, and available on a t-shirt...</div>
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Having mentioned monkeys, there’s something we have to get out of the way. The idea that humans are apes is a familiar and generally accepted one among people who follow tree-based thinking. Furthermore, despite the traditional idea that humans are ‘different enough’ from other primates to warrant their own group, we recognise today that<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Homo</em>, <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Australopithecus</em> and their close relatives should be united with chimps, gorillas and other great apes in a group that shares a single common ancestor. This group is Hominidae, within which the African ape branch is termed Homininae (the hominines), within which the human branch is termed Hominini (the hominins). Together with their ‘lesser ape’ relatives the gibbons and siamangs (the hylobatids), hominids are part of a more include clade called Hominoidea.</div>
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So, humans are apes from the phylogenetic point of view. That is, in scientific parlance, ‘ape’ no longer means ‘non-human hominoid’ (you might argue that, in<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">common</em> parlance, ‘ape’ does indeed mean ‘non-human hominoid’, but common parlance does not dictate best practice). But, if humans are apes it’s time to bite the bullet and admit that humans, and apes as a whole, are also monkeys. Again, common parlance would have it that monkeys are small, typically tailed, and do not include apes but, from a tree-based, phylogenetic point of view, apes are a particular group of large, tailless monkeys.</div>
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Like many people, I long resisted vociferously to this idea, insisting that the term ‘monkey’ has to be restricted to non-ape anthropoids (Anthropoidea is the clade that includes New World monkeys and both Old World monkeys and apes). But if birds are dinosaurs, whales are artiodactyls, and humans are apes then, dammit, apes are monkeys. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4A-dMqEbSk8" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">This video from the brilliant AronRa</a> helped sway my opinion, and you can help preach the message with this <a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/tetzoo/works/12314796-with-the-other-giant-african-monkeys" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">new t-shirt I’ve recently designed!</a></div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/primates-t-shirt-lemon-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14395" height="378" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/primates-t-shirt-lemon-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="primates-t-shirt-lemon-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="600" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Apparently this colour is called 'lemon'. I will be wearing mine on the conference circuit this year. Oh, I'm not doing the conference circuit this year... oh well.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bipedality, orthogrady, hips and hindlimbs</strong></div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/orangutan-and-gibbon-350-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14435" height="377" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/orangutan-and-gibbon-350-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="orangutan-and-gibbon-350-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="350" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Orangutans and gibbons are capable of proficient bipedality and often use it in terrestrial settings and on compliant branches. This could mean that bipedality originally evolved in an arboreal setting. Image by Darren Naish.</div>
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Let’s now look at various anatomical features of humans and see how they compare to those of other primates. For no particular reason we begin with habitual bipedal behaviour, something that occurs more regularly in some non-human primates than used to be thought, a fact that has only become better appreciated as more hours of field observation have been logged, as more species have been intensively studied, and as improved technology has allowed people to better record behaviour. There are several competing ideas on the distribution and early evolution of orthograde (= erect-bodied) bipedalism, with the idea that bipedality evolved in a terrestrial setting from quadrupedal, pronograde (= horizontal-bodied), knuckle-walking ancestors still being supported by some lines of evidence (e.g., Richmond & Strait 2000, Richmond <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al</em>. 2001).</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Morotopithecus-vertebra-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Aaron-G-Filler-PLOS-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14439" height="398" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Morotopithecus-vertebra-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Aaron-G-Filler-PLOS-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="Morotopithecus-vertebra-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Aaron-G-Filler-PLOS-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Lumbar vertebra of the Miocene hominoid Morotopithecus bishopi (with C being a CT-scan of a human lumbar vertebra) showing the similar form and position of the Morotopithecus transverse process and associated structures relative to those of humans. Image by Aaron G. Filler, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.</div>
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However, the presence of both arboreal and terrestrial bipedal behaviour in gibbons and orangutans (Stanford 2006, Thorpe<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al</em>. 2006, 2007, b) and the presence of features associated with bipedal behaviour in fossil hominoids like <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Morotopithecus</em> and<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Orrorin</em> suggests that proficient bipedal abilities were present in some of the earliest hominids and hence inherited by hominines (the African ape clade) and hominins (australopithecines and <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Homo</em>). Under this scenario, bipedalism evolved in an arboreal setting, and quadrupedal hominines (gorillas and chimps) evolved from more bipedal ancestors, knuckle walking evolving independently at least twice (see Dainton & Macho 1999).</div>
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Note that all of the skeletal features associated with bipedalism in humans – <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">all</em> of them – are present in various non-humans where they also assist in bipedal behaviours, or are associated with vertical climbing or quadrupedality (Sarmiento & Marcus 2000). We thus see such features as short hips, a prominent ischial spine, a wide sacrum, and a femur with a strong bicondylar angle in such taxa as spider monkeys, howler monkeys, orangutans and lorises (Sarmiento & Marcus 2000): the characters concerned are not unique to humans; rather, humans are unique in <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">combining</em> this diverse set of features.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">A very special pelt</strong></div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/human-arm-hair-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14471" height="205" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/human-arm-hair-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="human-arm-hair-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Ultra-fine, ultra-tiny hair on a Caucasian human (here, on the upper and inner part of the left forearm).</div>
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Humans appear somewhat weird in possessing several features that look unusual compared to those of other primates. Perhaps the most famous aspect of human weirdness concerns our super-fine, especially short body hairs; our pelage is so fine that it creates the impression of a naked-skinned appearance. As has been argued several times, humans are not ‘naked’ at all: according to Schwartz & Rosenblum (1981) our hair follicles are distributed at the sort of density expected for an ape of our size.</div>
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Exactly what sort of selection led to our reduced pelt has been the source of substantial speculation (and virtually all of it really is just speculation): is it a product of neoteny (Morris 1967), were thermoregulatory pressures paramount (Wheeler 1992), was it to reduce parasite loads (Pagel & Bodmer 2003), or was it something to do with sexual selection (Darwin 1888) or, most radically, adaptation to an amphibious mode of life (Morgan 1997)? Based on the ecological context in which we evolved (tropical woodland-savannah complexes with watercourses and coasts within walking distance) and the presence within our species of sexually dimorphic integumentary features (read on), a combination of sexual selection and thermoregulation seems most likely.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/bodyhair-map-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Undress-006-wikipedia.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14431" height="278" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/bodyhair-map-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Undress-006-wikipedia.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="bodyhair-map-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Undress-006-wikipedia" width="600" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Human body hair is highly variable across the peoples of different regions. Diagram by Undress 006, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The human face and nose</strong></div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Mona-Lisa-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14453" height="396" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Mona-Lisa-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="Mona-Lisa-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Cranial peculiarities of Homo sapiens: long head hair, the nose, white sclera to the eyes, eyebrows.</div>
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Other anatomical peculiarities include our hemispherical buttocks and our especially robust, fully adducted hallux (‘big toe’) (‘adducted’ means that it’s been moved to occupy a position close to the midline of the foot: the opposite anatomical term – referring to a position away from the midline – is ‘abducted’).</div>
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And yet more weirdness comes from the fact that we are flamboyant animals, our bodies acting as billboards that advertise sexual condition and quality, and our faces possessing features that function in visual display and social behaviour: eyebrows, the white sclera and sometimes blue, grey, green or hazel irides of our eyes, the beards and moustaches of males (in some, not all, populations) and long head hair.</div>
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Seen within the context of facial characters present across primates (not in apes alone), none of our facial features are remarkable: pale or unusually coloured eyes, beards and moustaches, pale and dark streaks, bars and circles around and above the eyes, and showy masses of head hair are present across monkeys and apes. The prominent, cartilage-supported, ‘hooded’ human nose looks unusual compared to that of other extant apes and presumably evolved as an aid to thermoregulation, filtration and water control (Elad <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al</em>. 1993, Churchill <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al</em>. 2004), crucial within the environments we evolved in: its evolution is ‘logical’ in a big-bodied, erect mammal that walks long distances in arid or semi-arid environments.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/nose-of-Belgian-man-unknown-photographer-wikipedia-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14459" height="373" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/nose-of-Belgian-man-unknown-photographer-wikipedia-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="nose-of-Belgian-man-unknown-photographer-wikipedia-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The human nose is highly variable in size and shape. Remarkable crooked shapes as shown here are seen in many people of European ancestry. Image by unknown photographer, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.</div>
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Our large nose – involving innovations in the form and size of the nasal, ethmoid, sphenoid and maxilla and position of the fleshy nostril openings – can thus be seen as the best solution a short-faced primate could make in adapting to these problems, a poor version of the enhanced noses present in other big mammals of similar environments, but one which occurred in step with pharyngeal shape and hence vocal communication. In the simple sense of what it looks like on the outside, the human nose is, again, not unique within primates but has precedent in the pendulous noses of some cercopithecid monkeys where hooded and pendulous noses almost certainly evolved within the regime of sexual display. While the human face undeniably reflects a complex evolutionary interplay between social signalling, environmental, dietary adaptation <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">and</em> our short-faced, big-brained anthropoid legacy, the general message behind its anatomy is that we are part of the spectrum of elaborate facial forms present across our group.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The human female</strong></div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Peul-women-in-Paoua-hdptcar-600-px-tiny-wikipedia-July-2014.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14409" height="318" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Peul-women-in-Paoua-hdptcar-600-px-tiny-wikipedia-July-2014.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="Peul-women-in-Paoua-hdptcar-600-px-tiny-wikipedia-July-2014" width="600" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
A randomly selected image of a group of women. These are Fula women of Paoua, Central African Republic. The Fula number over 40 million, speak Fulfulde, and include a significant nomadic component: they are one of the most diverse and important groups of African people. Image by hdptcar, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.</div>
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It sometimes seems assumed that the features of the human female body associated with sexuality are ‘unusual’ compared to the anatomy of non-human primates. The fact that signs of oestrus are ‘concealed’ by the human body (we don’t produce obvious sexual swellings) has been much discussed and usually taken as evidence that the evolution of our anatomy was driven by the maintenance of pair-bonds, and hence social cohesion, through sex (Lovejoy 1981). Some authors have argued that oestrus shouldn’t be considered ‘concealed’, but – rather – that human females display what looks like ‘permanent oestrus’ (Szalay & Costello 1991). [Photo above by <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/8788342@N08" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">hdptcar</a>.]</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/gelada-pectoral-display-BluesyPete-300-px-tiny-wikipedia-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14405" height="386" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/gelada-pectoral-display-BluesyPete-300-px-tiny-wikipedia-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="gelada-pectoral-display-BluesyPete-300-px-tiny-wikipedia-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Pectoral display structures are present in geladas (both males and females). This is a female. Image by BluesyPete, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported, 2.5 Generic, 2.0 Generic and 1.0 Generic license.</div>
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Human breasts are not unprecedented when we look at the pectoral display structures of other primates (Geladas <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Theropithecus gelada</em>, with their brightly coloured array of intermittently-present pink pectoral vesicles, are the classic example [adjacent photo by<a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:BluesyPete" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">BluesyPete</a>]), and those of average individuals don’t seem tremendously unusual in size or proportions compared to those of other hominids during parts of their reproductive cycles. Having said that, I don’t think there’s any indication that the breasts of bonobos, gorillas or orangutans play the same role in sexual attraction as they do in humans, and human breasts typically contain more fatty tissue that those of other primates. Most hypotheses put forward to explain the evolution of breasts posit that they are honest indicators of fat reserves and hence advertise reproductive potential in some way. Marlowe (1997) termed this the Nubility Hypothesis. The idea that they might deceive potential partners by enhancing perceived reproductive potential – the so-called Deception Hypothesis (Caro & Sellen 1989) – has also been put forward. [Woman of Willendorf image below by <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:MatthiasKabel" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Matthias Kabel</a>.]</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Venus-of-Willendorf-MatthiasKabel-300-px-tiny-wikipedia-July-2014.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14413" height="519" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Venus-of-Willendorf-MatthiasKabel-300-px-tiny-wikipedia-July-2014.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="Venus-of-Willendorf-MatthiasKabel-300-px-tiny-wikipedia-July-2014" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
The Woman (or "Venus") of Willendorf, a c. 25,000 year old human figurine discovered in Austria in 1908. Whatever figures like this were 'for' (if anything), they help illustrate the symbolic significance of breasts within our species. Image by Matthias Kabel, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.</div>
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The inevitable conclusion of this line of argumentation is that female bodies display a permanent sexual availability that evolved in step with bipedality, that the evolution of breasts and other female secondary sexual characteristics was adaptive as it enhanced access to resources acquired by males <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">and</em> acted as an anti-infanticidal strategy (because males would assume that children were the products of the numerous matings they had had with their ‘permanently available’ partners),<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">and</em> that it links to our reduced pelage (by making females, and sex, ‘sexier’).</div>
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However, there are several reasons why this view of humans as creatures that display a mock ‘permanent oestrus’ might be problematic, or at best over-simplified. One is that the expectation that humans should display oestrus swellings of any sort might be a mistake based on misleading comparisons made with chimps and various monkey species. Pawłowski (1999) argued that humans might lack oestrus swellings as an adaptation to our orthograde bipedality and choice of habitat, but also noted that the idea that swellings were ancestral for our lineage might be erroneous anyway (they aren’t present in gibbons, orangutans or gorillas and, within Hominoidea, might be unique to the <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Pan</em> lineage).</div>
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Another problem with the idea that the female body advertises permanent sexual availability is that it implies or relies on the idea that females are sexually passive and effectively selected by males based on their reproductive potential; it more or less paints a picture of females as home-bound creatures that get protected and cared for by males if they’re plucked from the crowd on the basis of their good genes.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/girls-from-io9-article-350-px-tiny-July-2014.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14475" height="227" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/girls-from-io9-article-350-px-tiny-July-2014.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="girls-from-io9-article-350-px-tiny-July-2014" width="350" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Intrasexual competition among females (implied by this roving gang of intimidating individuals) may be a crucial component of human evolution. This image is from Annalee Newitz's io9 article 'Evolution is steered by aggressive competition between females'.</div>
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This scenario looks at odds with what we more typically see in other animals, including primates: <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">females</em> select males as mates and typically choose who mates with them and when, and it’s <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">males</em> who are the showy ones whose evolution has been driven by selection to be sexually attractive. A large body of literature suggests that these generalisations apply across primates, including lemurs, macaques, mandrills, orangutans, chimps and others; in fact, several studies emphasise the importance of intrasexual competition among females, female selection of mates, and the adaptive advantage of promiscuity among females (e.g., Smuts 1987, Paul 2002, Drea 2005). This view isn’t without controversy, however, since some workers have argued that female mate choice in primates is fundamentally limited by male aggression, especially in species with strong sexual dimorphism.</div>
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As for humans, there’s little doubt that women are acutely aware of the physical appearance and social status of other women, and some studies show that women are highly competitive – at least as competitive as men (Buss 1988) – when it comes to mate attraction. However, the ability of females to exercise choice is known to be limited by social conditions across primates (Keddy-Hector 1992), and if anything is clear from the conventions and constraints of culture, it’s that people don’t usually get to simply pick up who they like.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Congo-man-and-woman-Hutchinson-et-al-1902-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14427" height="529" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Congo-man-and-woman-Hutchinson-et-al-1902-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="Congo-man-and-woman-Hutchinson-et-al-1902-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Sexual dimorphism is obvious in humans, but size dimorphism is not great compared to that of some of our close relatives. This image of people from the Congo region is from 1902 and is in the public domain.</div>
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We therefore have a complex situation where several factors seemingly evolved in tandem: yes, breasts and other features of the human female body do attract male attention and male choice may have contributed to female appearance, but intrasexual competition among females and its link with social standing and hence mate choice may also have been important, perhaps more so. The fact that sexual size dimorphism in hominins is reduced relative to that of other hominids (men are, on average, approximately 15% heaver than women, whereas the size different in gorillas and orangutans is more like 50%) (Larsen 2003, Reno <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al</em>. 2003) suggests that a reasonably egalitarian sexual system was ancestral for humans: it was not males in charge all the way.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The human male</strong></div>
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To return to that idea that human females are ‘unusual’ as goes our hypothesised ancestral condition, note that the opposite might also be true: male facial and body hair and the bulbous human penis all appear unusual compared to the conditions in other closest relatives. The sometimes thick and extensive beards and moustaches of human males (remember though: extensive facial hair is not a universal male trait of our species) seem to have roles in perceived attractiveness (Dixson & Brooks 2013), a fact which strongly suggests that sexual selection has driven their evolution. Similar claims can be made about other aspects of the male face and jaw.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Kingdon-faces-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Jonathan-Kingdon.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14445" height="551" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Kingdon-faces-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Jonathan-Kingdon.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="Kingdon-faces-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Jonathan-Kingdon" width="293" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Facial broadening, the evolution of beards and moustaches and features that enhance gaze and the movements of eyebrows and eyelids are all common trends in primate evolution. This illustration - comparing orangutan and human facial appearance - is by Jonathan Kingdon and is from Kingdon (2003).</div>
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How does the ornamented male face compare to that of related primates? Of course, comparative data across all the bits of anatomy we’re interested in have yet to be compiled. However, Weston <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al</em>. (2007) documented sexual dimorphism in the breadth-to-height ratio of the upper face in <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Homo sapiens</em> and found the same sort of dimorphism to be present across the hominins they sampled. It is not present, however, in the faces of chimpanzees, leading them to suggest that, while hominins reduced the amount of sexual dimorphism present within their canine teeth, they compensated for it by increasing facial dimorphism.</div>
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Again, however, this doesn’t mean that humans are somehow doing anything especially different from what’s seen in other primates, since other forms of facial dimorphism are present in other lineages: in chimps, orangutans, capuchins and macaques, males have proportionally broader faces than females (Weston<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al</em>. 2004). This facial breadth is clearly accentuated in male orangutans by the massive cheek flanges they possess. Note, however, that researchers who have searched for this kind of facial dimorphism in certain human populations have failed to find it (Özener 2012) so it may not be universal.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/burqa-Mea-Shearim-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Zivya-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14485" height="454" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/burqa-Mea-Shearim-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Zivya-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="burqa-Mea-Shearim-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Zivya-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
Cultures and conventions emphasising modesty of dress arguably override the ancestry showiness of our species. Image shows a burqa-wearing woman in Mea She'arim, Israel. Image by Zivya, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.</div>
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In the end, the bodies of male and female humans both exhibit significant morphological novelties that almost certainly evolved within the context of sexual selection, and we should be perceived as showy primates highly reliant on visual signals of quality. As is the case with other comparisons made between<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Homo sapiens</em> and other primates, we can better appreciate the evolutionary context of our showiness by looking beyond our nearest relatives – the relatively conservative chimps and gorillas – and at other hominids (orangutans), hominoids (gibbons) and catarrhines (Old World monkeys).</div>
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<em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">However</em>, never forget that culture and convention are paramount in how humans present themselves to others – the evolutionary pressures that led to our anatomy, behaviour and sexual dimorphism are effectively over-ridden, to a greater or lesser degree, in numerous cultures [adjacent image by <a href="http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Zivya" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Zivya</a>]. Does this mean that they no longer play a role in selection and hence evolution? Well, that’s hard to answer. Meanwhile, in other cultures, dress, convention and tradition mean that sexual dimorphism is emphasised or accentuated, a pattern consistent with claims that anatomical and psychological evolution in humans is occurring <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">faster</em> than it was before.</div>
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<strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">And finally…</strong></div>
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Human social systems are impressively diverse but the existence and maintenance of family groups that belong to extended families and clans have to be considered most typical. Monogamy, polygyny and polyandry are all present in different cultures and it’s worth noting that many stereotypes about divisions of labour between gender groups don’t apply universally across our species. The diversity of social styles and cultures present across <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Homo sapiens</em> is such a vast subject that I can’t begin to cover it here.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Orang-Asmat-man-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Edi-Wibowo-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="size-full wp-image-14417" height="374" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/Orang-Asmat-man-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Edi-Wibowo-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px none; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; width: auto;" title="Orang-Asmat-man-300-px-tiny-July-2014-Edi-Wibowo-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="300" /></a><div class="wp-caption-text" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-family: ApresTT, Prelude, arial, sans-serif !important; font-size: 16px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 25px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
This Asmat woodcarver (from Papua province in New Guinea, Indonesia) encapsulates the complex, flamboyant use of paints, clothing and body decorations seen across many human groups. We are 'extreme' primates when it comes to such accoutrements. Image by Edi Wibowo, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.</div>
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As an addendum to the discussion above about human anatomy and its role in sexual selection, I will end by saying that a major part of our flamboyance comes from the accoutrements we wear or attach to our bodies: tattoos and body paint, piercings and other forms of body modification, jewellery, styled and cut hair, and clothing. Again, the notion that humans have developed extreme versions of trends present within other primates receives support even here, because we know of chimpanzee populations that indulge in ephemeral fashions whereby blades of grass are worn as ear decorations (van Leeuwen <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">et al</em>. 2014). What does, of course, make humans very different from other primates is that, through our use of tools (especially blades), we modify the hair on our heads and bodies, and use clothing to enhance, modify or conceal parts of our bodies.</div>
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As I said right at the start of this article, the idea that we might better understand human biology and evolution by making comparisons with other primate species is hardly a novel or innovative idea – it has a long history extending back to Darwin and beyond. And it’s such a vast area with so many facets and relevant areas of investigation that it’s difficult to know where to start. Personally, I think it’s helpful to see us within the context of being ‘just another one of the primates’, but… as for whether this perspective downplays human uniqueness… well, we’re still weird. But then, so are so many of the other primates.</div>
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Oh, and <a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/tetzoo/works/12332294-primates-of-earth" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">this [below] is now available too</a>. It’s at the <a href="http://www.redbubble.com/people/tetzoo/portfolio" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Tet Zoo redbubble shop</a>.</div>
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<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/primates-of-earth-t-shirt-lemon-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-14547" height="509" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/files/2014/07/primates-of-earth-t-shirt-lemon-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: none !important; display: block; margin: 5px auto; max-width: 600px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" title="primates-of-earth-t-shirt-lemon-600-px-tiny-July-2014-Darren-Naish-Tetrapod-Zoology" width="600" /></a></div>
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For previous Tet Zoo articles on Old World monkeys and other primates, do check out…</div>
<ul style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; font-size: 16px; line-height: 26px; list-style: circle; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 18px 20px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2012/10/20/zihlmans-pygmy-chimpanzee-hypothesis/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Zihlman’s ‘pygmy chimpanzee hypothesis’</a></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2012/11/27/marmosets-and-tamarins-dwarfed-monkeys-of-south-american-tropics/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Marmosets and tamarins: dwarfed monkeys of the South American tropics</a></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2012/11/29/amazing-swimming-proboscis-monkey-part-i/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The amazing swimming Proboscis monkey (part I)</a></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2012/12/13/nasalis-among-odd-nosed-colobines/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Nasalis</em> among the odd-nosed colobines or The “Nasalis Paradox” (proboscis monkeys part II)</a></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2014/05/28/old-world-monkeys-of-choice/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Old World monkeys of choice</a></li>
<li style="background-color: transparent; border-bottom-width: 0px !important; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2014/07/17/de-loys-ape-and-what-to-do-with-it/" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; color: #19437c; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">De Loys’ Ape and what to do with it</a></li>
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Zihlman, A. 1984. Pygmy chimps, people, and the pundits. <em style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">New Scientist</em> 104 (1430), 39-40.</div>
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<span id="authorImage" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; display: block; float: left; margin: 3px 8px 0px 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><img alt="Darren Naish" class="photo" height="60" src="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/wp-content/uploads/userphoto/58.thumbnail.jpg" style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" width="60" /></span><strong style="background-color: transparent; border: 0px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">About the Author:</strong> Darren Naish is a science writer, technical editor and palaeozoologist (affiliated with the University of Southampton, UK). He mostly works on Cretaceous dinosaurs and pterosaurs but has an avid interest in all things tetrapod. His publications can be downloaded at darrennaish.wordpress.com. He has been blogging at Tetrapod Zoology since 2006. Check out the Tet Zoo podcast at tetzoo.com!</div>
NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-30791947375972602792014-06-26T15:01:00.002-07:002014-06-26T15:01:48.795-07:00Why Liberals Are More Intelligent Than Conservatives<br />
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<br /><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist" style="color: #236fb5; text-decoration: none;">The Scientific Fundamentalist</a></h2>
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A look at the hard truths about human nature.</h3>
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by Satoshi Kanazawa</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201003/why-liberals-are-more-intelligent-conservatives" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Why Liberals Are More Intelligent Than Conservatives</a></span></h2>
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Liberals think they’re more intelligent than conservatives because they are</h3>
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<span class="submitted" style="color: #666666; font-size: 11px;">Published on March 21, 2010 by Satoshi Kanazawa in <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist" style="color: #666666; text-decoration: none;">The Scientific Fundamentalist</a></span></div>
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<a class="pt-basics-link" href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/narcissism" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: black; text-decoration: none;" title="Psychology Today looks at Narcissism"></a><img alt="Sarah Paulson" height="135" src="http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/u15/Sarah%20Paulson.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 10px 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="135" />Harriet Hayes: I don’t even know what the sides are in the culture wars.<br />
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Matt Albie: Well, your side hates my side because you think we think you are stupid, and my side hates your side because we think you are stupid.<br />
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<em>Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip</em>, Nevada Day, Part I<br />
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It is difficult to define a whole school of political ideology precisely, but one may reasonably define liberalism (as opposed to conservatism) in the contemporary United States as <em>the genuine concern for the welfare of genetically unrelated others and the willingness to contribute larger proportions of private resources for the welfare of such others.</em> In the modern political and economic context, this willingness usually translates into paying higher proportions of individual incomes in taxes toward the <a class="pt-basics-link" href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/politics" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #333333; text-decoration: none;" title="Psychology Today looks at Politics">government</a> and its social welfare programs. Liberals usually support such social welfare programs and higher taxes to finance them, and conservatives usually oppose them.</div>
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Defined as such, liberalism is evolutionarily novel. Humans (like other species) are evolutionarily designed to be <a class="pt-basics-link" href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/altruism" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #333333; text-decoration: none;" title="Psychology Today looks at Altruism">altruistic</a> toward their genetic kin, their friends and allies, and members of their deme (a group of intermarrying individuals) or ethnic group. They are not designed to be altruistic toward an indefinite number of complete strangers whom they are not likely ever to meet or interact with. This is largely because our ancestors lived in a small band of 50-150 genetically related individuals, and large cities and nations with thousands and millions of people are themselves evolutionarily novel.</div>
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The examination of the 10-volume compendium <em>The Encyclopedia of World Cultures,</em> which describes<em> all</em> human cultures known to anthropology (more than 1,500) in great detail, as well as extensive primary ethnographies of traditional societies, reveals that liberalism as defined above is absent in these traditional cultures. While sharing of resources, especially food, is quite common and often mandatory among hunter-gatherer tribes, and while trade with neighboring tribes often takes place, there is no evidence that people in contemporary hunter-gatherer bands <em>freely</em> share resources with <em>members of other tribes.</em></div>
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Because all members of a hunter-gatherer tribe are genetic kin or at the very least friends and allies for life, sharing resources among them does not qualify as an expression of liberalism as defined above. Given its absence in the contemporary hunter-gatherer tribes, which are often used as modern-day analogs of our ancestral life, it may be reasonable to infer that sharing of resources with total strangers that one has never met or is not likely ever to meet – that is, liberalism – was not part of our ancestral life. Liberalism may therefore be evolutionarily novel, and <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201003/the-hypothesis" style="color: #333333;" target="_blank">the Hypothesis</a> would predict that more intelligent individuals are more likely than less intelligent individuals to espouse liberalism as a value.</div>
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Analyses of large representative samples, from both the United States and the United Kingdom, confirm this prediction. In both countries, more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to be liberals than less intelligent children. For example, among the American sample, those who identify themselves as “very liberal” in early adulthood have a mean <a class="pt-basics-link" href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/child-development" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #333333; text-decoration: none;" title="Psychology Today looks at Child Development">childhood</a> IQ of 106.4, whereas those who identify themselves as “very conservative” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 94.8.</div>
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Even though past studies show that women are more liberal than men, and blacks are more liberal than whites, the effect of childhood <a class="pt-basics-link" href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/intelligence" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #333333; text-decoration: none;" title="Psychology Today looks at Intelligence">intelligence</a> on adult political ideology is twice as large as the effect of either <a class="pt-basics-link" href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/sex" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(153, 153, 153); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #333333; text-decoration: none;" title="Psychology Today looks at Sex">sex</a> or race. So it appears that, as <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201003/the-hypothesis" style="color: #333333;" target="_blank">the Hypothesis</a> predicts, more intelligent individuals are more likely to espouse the value of liberalism than less intelligent individuals, possibly because liberalism is evolutionarily novel and conservatism is evolutionarily familiar.</div>
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The primary means that citizens of capitalist democracies contribute their private resources for the welfare of the genetically unrelated others is paying taxes to the government for its social welfare programs. The fact that conservatives have been shown to give more money to charities than liberals is <em>not</em> inconsistent with the prediction from <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201003/the-hypothesis" style="color: #333333;" target="_blank">the Hypothesis</a>; in fact, it supports the prediction. Individuals can normally choose and select the beneficiaries of their charity donations. For example, they can choose to give money to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, because they want to help them, but not to give money to the victims of the earthquake in Chile, because they don’t want to help them. In contrast, citizens do not have any control over whom the money they pay in taxes benefit. They cannot individually choose to pay taxes to fund Medicare, because they want to help elderly white people, but not AFDC, because they don’t want to help poor black single mothers. This may precisely be why conservatives choose to give more money to individual charities of their choice while opposing higher taxes.</div>
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Incidentally, this finding substantiates one of the persistent complaints among conservatives. Conservatives often complain that liberals control the media or the show business or the academia or some other social institutions. <a href="http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201003/the-hypothesis" style="color: #333333;" target="_blank">The Hypothesis</a> explains why conservatives are correct in their complaints. Liberals <em>do</em> control the media, or the show business, or the academia, among other institutions, because, apart from a few areas in life (such as business) where countervailing circumstances may prevail, <em>liberals control all institutions.</em> They control the institutions because liberals are on average more intelligent than conservatives and thus they are more likely to attain the highest status in any area of (evolutionarily novel) modern life.</div>
NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-26215244056212557492014-06-02T20:32:00.000-07:002014-06-02T20:32:16.513-07:00Maybe classical clockwork can explain quantum weirdness<span style="font-size: x-large;">ScienceNews</span><br />
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Maybe classical clockwork can explain quantum weirdness</h1>
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Game of Life may be a model for deriving quantum odds from cause-and-effect laws, Nobel laureate ’t Hooft says</h2>
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<span class="views-label views-label-title">BY</span> <span class="field-content"><a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/author/tom-siegfried?mode=blog&context=117" style="color: #c64308; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none;">TOM SIEGFRIED</a></span> </div>
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<em>Second of two parts (<a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/nobel-laureates-offer-new-interpretations-quantum-mysteries" style="color: #c64308; text-decoration: none;">Read part 1</a>)</em><br />
Quantum physics is like life. Not nasty, brutish and short, but rather unpredictable, occasionally interesting, and often depressing. At least it has been depressing for many scientists, like Einstein, who thought science ought to predict what happens, not just give you the odds for what might happen, like meteorologists forecasting rain.<br />
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At least with quantum physics, unlike weather forecasts, the odds are always accurate. But that doesn’t satisfy everybody who wants a truly deep understanding of nature’s laws.<br />
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So even though quantum theory’s predictions are always remarkably reliable, physicists have for decades been debating what the mathematical apparatus for making those predictions, known as quantum mechanics, really means.<br />
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Some interpretations suggest that reality is ill-defined until observations and measurements are made. It’s like turning a spinning coin into either heads or tails by catching and looking at it. Others say there are multiple parallel universes, so all spinning coins turn up as heads in one universe and tails in another. Or maybe — a minority view — quantum coins are just like real coins: whether they turn up heads or tails is completely deterministic, obeying strict laws of cause and effect. If you knew all the forces, the strength of the flip and the gravity and air resistance and everything else, you could predict a coin’s heads-or-tails outcome correctly every time. Some people hope that quantum physics will turn out to be like that, with everything foreordained by tock-after-tick deterministic clockwork, as with classical Newtonian physics.<br />
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Sadly for Newton fans, the weird outcomes of many quantum experiments have seemingly ruled out any such return to certainty. Take, for instance, the confusing phenomenon of quantum entanglement. Two particles from a common source can be separated by a vast distance, yet a measurement of one instantly determines what can be measured about the other. No signal can be sent through spacetime for ordinary cause-and-effect to explain that link. It’s quantum magic. Unless some invisible properties, or “hidden variables,” are determining the connection.<br />
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It may well be that, at its most basic level, there is no randomness in nature, no fundamentally statistical aspect to the laws of evolution. Everything, up to the most minute detail, is controlled by invariable laws. Every significant event in our universe takes place for a reason, it was caused by the action of physical law, not just by chance.</div>
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<em>— Gerard ’t Hooft</em></div>
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</aside>Over the years, various experiments have supposedly ruled out such hidden variables. But not necessarily the ones proposed by Nobel laureate Gerard ’t Hooft. If you trace all causes and effects back to the beginning of the universe, then maybe quantum mysteries such as entanglement can be explained in a classical cause-and-effect way, he argues.</div>
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“It may well be that, at its most basic level, there is no randomness in nature, no fundamentally statistical aspect to the laws of evolution,” he writes <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1548" style="color: #c64308; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">in a new paper</a>. “Everything, up to the most minute detail, is controlled by invariable laws. Every significant event in our universe takes place for a reason, it was caused by the action of physical law, not just by chance.”<br />
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’t Hooft calls his view of quantum mechanics the cellular automaton interpretation. In other words, he thinks quantum physics is like Life. A cellular automaton is like a grid on which black and white squares change color on the basis of simple rules. The prototypical example is the <a href="http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html" style="color: #c64308; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">game known as Life</a>, invented several decades ago by the <a href="http://www.math.princeton.edu/directory/john-conway" style="color: #c64308; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">mathematician John Conway</a>.<br />
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Think of the universe as made up of rows of pixels on a computer screen. The configuration of pixels changes from row to row by applying an algorithm, a set of rules for telling each pixel what color to become based on the current colors of its neighboring pixels. This approach is equivalent, ’t Hooft points out, to saying that the states of nature can be described by a sequence of integers that evolve over time, as determined by an algorithm that tells them how to change.<br />
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Such an algorithm, ’t Hooft contends, can reproduce all the mysterious features of quantum physics. All observable phenomena will still obey the probabilities computed using quantum math. In this view, even though the future is determined by the past, humans could never predict the future, because they don’t know the underlying algorithm. And even if they did, they couldn’t calculate it faster than the evolution of the universe itself.<br />
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If he is right, the foundations of reality could be described by a deterministic theory. “It will be a theory that describes phenomena at a very tiny distance scale in terms of evolution laws that process bits and bytes of information,” ’t Hooft writes.<br />
Mathematical technicalities abound in his 202-page paper. He shows with elaborate mathematics how his idea can work for “toy” models, such as a world with particles that move in only one dimension and don’t interact with each other. He suggests ways that ideas from superstring theory might help make things work in more complicated systems. He goes on to outline how further work might develop a complete theory capable of explaining the entirety of particle physics, with all its quantum features, from a nonquantum foundation.<br />
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Recapitulating ’t Hooft’s 200 pages of arguments into a few paragraphs omits a lot of nuance. But at the core of his approach is the notion that ultimate elements of reality, whatever they are, do not correspond to the templates for reality conceived by the human mind. Concepts such as particles and fields used in today’s standard physics are human inventions. Subatomic particles, atoms, molecules — the things that exhibit quantum weirdness — are templates imposed by human theory on the underlying truly real objects in nature. Quantum mysteries arise because of lack of awareness of the underlying level. An electron can be in two places at once because an electron is not a basic element of reality — it’s a template that subsumes multiple “beables,” the submicroscopic states of true reality.<br />
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“It is due to our intuitive thinking that our templates represent reality in some way, that we hit upon the apparently inevitable paradoxes” of quantum physics, ’t Hooft writes. He believes that a cellular automaton can describe the real states underlying the templates deterministically, with math that can be transformed into quantum theory’s seemingly probabilistic descriptions of reality.<br />
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It may take years, decades, perhaps centuries to arrive at a comprehensive theory of quantum gravity, combined with a theory of quantum matter that will be an elaborate extension of the standard model.</div>
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<em>— Gerard ’t Hooft</em></div>
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</aside>“We consider cases where one has a <em>classical, deterministic automaton </em>on the one hand, and an<em>apparently quantum mechanical system </em>on the other,” he writes. “Then, the mathematical mapping is considered that shows these two systems to be equivalent in the sense that the solutions of one can be used to describe the solutions of the other.”<br />
Yet while ’t Hooft makes a lot of progress, he acknowledges that the battle is far from won. There are difficulties to be overcome before he can reproduce all the victories achieved by the standard model of particle physics. Not to mention incorporating solutions to its remaining puzzles, such as how to formulate a quantum theory of gravity.<br />
“It may take years, decades, perhaps centuries to arrive at a comprehensive theory of quantum gravity, combined with a theory of quantum matter that will be an elaborate extension of the standard model,” he writes. Only then will it be possible to identify the beables, the basic ingredients for deterministic theory, and figure out the relationship between the beables and the human templates such as particles and fields. “Only then can we tell whether the cellular automaton interpretation really works.”<br />
’t Hooft has been developing these ideas for many years. So far they have not caught on among other quantum physicists. But his efforts are much more subtle and sophisticated than the many other attempts to restore cause-and-effect determinism to the universe. And even if he hasn’t yet succeeded in establishing that this approach will work, he has offered sufficient evidence that his views should be taken seriously. And that is one of his goals.<br />
“We hope to inspire more physicists to … to consider seriously the possibility that quantum mechanics as we know it is not a fundamental, mysterious, impenetrable feature of our physical world, but rather an instrument to statistically describe a world where the physical laws, at their most basic roots, are not quantum mechanical at all. Sure, we do not know how to formulate the most basic laws at present, but we are collecting indications that a classical world underlying quantum mechanics does exist.”<br />
<em>Follow me on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/tom_siegfried" style="color: #c64308; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@tom_siegfried</a></em></div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-28654598878796881022014-06-02T20:20:00.001-07:002014-06-02T20:20:30.586-07:00Nobel laureates offer new interpretations of quantum mysteries<span style="font-size: x-large;">ScienceNews</span><br />
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<a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/nobel-laureates-offer-new-interpretations-quantum-mysteries" target="_blank">Nobel laureates offer new interpretations of quantum mysteries</a></h1>
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<span class="views-label views-label-title">BY</span> <span class="field-content"><a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/author/tom-siegfried" style="color: #c64308; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none;">TOM SIEGFRIED</a></span> </div>
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12:30PM, MAY 26, 2014</div>
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Like the way flipping a coin represents the dual possibilities of heads or tails, the quantum mathematical expression for computing probabilities of measurement outcomes describes multiple realities existing simultaneously. Some physicists have therefore suggested that the quantum mathematical expression does not have actual physical significance. </div>
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JHI L. SCOTT, USN/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS</div>
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<em>First of two parts</em><br />
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Writing about the paradoxical nature of quantum mechanics poses a peculiar paradox of its own. If you explain it well enough that your readers understand it, you've somehow committed a gross error, because (<a href="http://bouman.chem.georgetown.edu/general/feynman.html" style="color: #c64308; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">as Feynman famously said</a>) nobody really understands quantum mechanics.<br />
<br />
But don’t worry. There is no danger that anybody reading this blog will come away understanding it. Nevertheless there are some new developments in the never-ending quest to explain quantum physics that, even if hard to understand, are worth knowing about. Especially considering where these new developments come from. Two giants of 20th century physics have recently offered 21st century views on how to interpret the quantum math that requires the subatomic world to be so weird.<br />
<br />
The giants are Steven Weinberg (<a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1979/" style="color: #c64308; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Nobel 1979</a>) and Gerard ’t Hooft (<a href="http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1999/" style="color: #c64308; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Nobel 1999</a>). They both played key roles in forging the modern understanding of particles and forces known as the standard model. They share a deep concern about the issues afflicting efforts to understand the foundations of quantum mechanics. But they offer very different views on what to do about it.<br />
<br />
For decades, physicists seeking a solid foundation for quantum mechanics have been proposing <a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/tom%E2%80%99s-top-10-interpretations-quantum-mechanics" style="color: #c64308; text-decoration: none;">new interpretations</a> of its math. There are now more quantum interpretations than Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and X-Men movies combined. None have succeeded in ending the debate over two enduring problems: what happens when a measurement is made on a quantum system, and what the hell is going on with “spooky” quantum entanglement.<br />
<br />
Measurement is a crucial concept in quantum mechanics, because it doesn’t work like the traditional measurements of classical physics. In the old days everybody thought objects had properties, like the way a coin can show heads or tails. You find out which property it is showing by looking at it. But in quantum mechanics, the property doesn’t exist before the measurement. Quantum particles, such as photons or electrons, are like spinning coins, neither heads nor tails until you catch one.<br />
<br />
Quantum mechanical math is therefore probabilistic. It tells you the odds of getting heads or tails. But once you make the measurement, the result is definite. No more probabilities. So the quantum mathematical expression used for computing the probabilities, called the wave function (or state vector), apparently just “collapses.” (There is a technical distinction between wave function and state vector that will be ignored unless it really matters.)<br />
<br />
For the traditional “Copenhagen” interpretation, Weinberg notes, that collapse just expresses a “mysterious division between the microscopic world governed by quantum mechanics and a macroscopic world of apparatus and observers that obeys classical physics.” Hence some experts wonder whether the state vector is actually representative of reality at all. If it is, some have argued, then all the various possible outcomes must actually occur in some universe — “the endless creation of inconceivably many branches of history,” as Weinberg puts it. In other words, some important football games would have ended differently because the other team won the overtime coin toss.<br />
<br />
Entanglement is even more mysterious, Weinberg suggests, because the state vector can change as a result of a measurement made very far away. When two particles interact, they form a composite quantum system, described by a single state vector, even when one particle flies far away from the other. The state vector tells the odds for outcomes of measurements on either of the two particles. But once you measure one of them, the odds for different outcomes for the other particle instantaneously change, no matter how far away the other particle is. Sounds like voodoo, which is maybe why Einstein called it “spooky.”<br />
<br />
“The susceptibility of the state vector to instantaneous change from a distance casts doubts on its physical significance,” Weinberg <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.3483" style="color: #c64308; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">writes in his new paper</a>. If a statement describing a system’s state can be changed instantly by a faraway measurement, “it seems reasonable to infer that such statements are meaningless,” he declares. “That is, it seems worth considering yet another interpretation of quantum mechanics.”<br />
<br />
Weinberg’s title for the paper on his new interpretation is “Quantum mechanics without state vectors.” It asserts that the state vector is not, in fact, the proper representation of reality. That role should rather be assigned to something called the density matrix.<br />
<br />
“Density” in this context refers to probability densities; a matrix is just a mathematical expression in which numbers are arranged in rows and columns. When the state vector is unknown, quantum calculations use a density matrix to compute the odds of different measurement outcomes. (The density matrix represents the information you possess about the relative likelihood of various possible state vectors describing the system you’re going to measure.)<br />
<br />
As Weinberg points out, a given set of state vectors will tell you what the density matrix is. But a given density matrix doesn’t tell you what the state vectors are, because different sets of state vectors can give the same density matrix. It’s kind of like the answer is 42, but you don’t know whether that came from 7x6 or 2x21 or 3x14. Since 42 is the number you need, there’s no reason to care about its possible factors. So Weinberg advocates doing away with all the fuss about state vectors and concentrating on density matrices instead.<br />
<br />
“In speaking of ‘quantum mechanics without state vectors’ I mean only that a statement that a system is in any one of various state vectors with various probabilities is to be regarded as having no meaning, except for what it tells us about the density matrix,” he writes. “With this definition of a physical state, even in entangled states nothing that is done in one isolated system can instantaneously affect the physical state of a distant isolated system.”<br />
<br />
Weinberg goes on to explore ways that new mathematical features of quantum mechanics might emerge if the density matrix is taken as the proper description of physical states. Whether deep new insights into physics will result from such explorations remains to be seen.<br />
<br />
But even if quantum mechanics as we know it remains essentially unchanged, it’s still thinkable that something deeper will ultimately explain its weirdness. That’s the tactic of ’t Hooft, who for many years has argued that quantum probabilities mask a unique cause-and-effect “deterministic” reality, hidden from human view.<br />
Various analyses and experiments seem to have ruled out the notion that “hidden variables” determine the fate of particle measurements for which quantum math can give only the odds. ’t Hooft does not dispute these experiments. But he suggests that quantum odds can nevertheless emerge from a deeper layer of reality in which everything is specified deterministically. He spells his views out in a new <a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1405.1548" style="color: #c64308; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">202-page paper</a>. Consequently it will require another 1,000-word blog post to explore his interpretation in sufficient detail to guarantee that it will be properly misunderstood.<br />
<br />
<em>Follow me on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/tom_siegfried" style="color: #c64308; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">@tom_siegfried</a></em></div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-5941838582037724842014-04-15T08:41:00.001-07:002014-04-15T08:41:23.659-07:005 Amazing Things Scientists Have Discovered About Psychedelics<div class="banner_ banner_living" id="banner">
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<span class="field field-name-field-sources field-type-node-reference field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><a href="http://alternet.org/">AlterNet</a></span></span></span> / <em>By</em> <em><a href="http://www.alternet.org/authors/april-m-short">April M. Short</a></em>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Psychedelics have the potential to treat cancers, addiction and psychological traumas.</span></h3>
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<em><span class="field field-name-field-date field-type-date field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" content="2014-04-11T15:38:00-07:00">April 11, 2014</span></span></span></span>
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Despite the fact that the U.S. government deems many
hallucinogenic or psychedelic substances to be dangerous, classifying
them as Schedule I drugs with “no currently accepted medical use,”
various scientists have dared to study their effects. What they’ve found
over the years paints a startling, promising and powerful picture of
potentially game-changing medicines.</div>
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The government’s
"war on drugs" policies severely limit research on psychedelics. Before
scientists can complete any federally sanctioned studies, they have to
jump through an expensive tangle of hoops and red tape. Restrictions
aside, over the years researchers have collected a database of research
showing that many psychedelics have an unprecedented potential to treat
cancers, addictions and psychological traumas, among other things.</div>
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Here are some of the coolest things scientists have discovered about psychedelics over the years.</div>
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<strong>1. LSD can mitigate end-of-life anxiety.</strong></div>
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The <a href="http://www.alternet.org/drugs/lsd-can-ease-anxiety-dying-patients">results</a> of the first clinical study of the therapeutic use of LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) in humans in more than 40 years were <a href="http://www.maps.org/research/lsd/Gasser-2014-JMND-4March14.pdf">published</a>
in the peer-reviewed Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease in March.
They show that LSD can promote statistically significant reductions in
anxiety for people coming to terms with their own impending demise.</div>
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Swiss
psychiatrist Peter Gasser and his colleagues conducted the
double-blind, placebo-controlled study, sponsored by the non-profit
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). They
tracked 12 people who were near the end of life as they attended
LSD-assisted psychotherapy sessions. In <a href="http://journals.lww.com/jonmd/Documents/90000000.0-00001.pdf">his report</a>, Gasser concluded that the study subjects’ anxiety "went down and stayed down."</div>
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<strong>2. Psilocybin, aka magic mushrooms, actually calms, rather than stimulates, certain brain functions.</strong></div>
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<br /></div>
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The
common conception is that psychedelics do something extra to cause
their effects—increase activity, add hallucinations, promote awareness,
etc. A <a href="http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_24-1-2012-10-39-58">study</a>
that examined brain scans of people under the influence of psilocybin
found that it reduces activity in certain areas of the brain. That
reduction of activity leads to the drug's effect on cognition and
memory. Psychedelics, and psilocybin in particular, might actually be
eliminating what could be called the extra "noise" in the brain.</div>
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<strong>3. The drug MDMA (aka <strong>ecstasy, or</strong>Molly)
promotes release of the hormone oxytocin, which could help treat severe
anxieties like PTSD and social anxiety resulting from autism.</strong></div>
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Before
the federal government classified it as a Schedule I substance,
therapists experimented with MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxyrnethimphetarnine)
beginning in the 1970s to help reduce moderate depression and anxiety
among their adult patients. After widespread recreational use in the
rave scene caught the attention of authorities, MDMA was criminalized in
1985. However, research primarily supported by the MAPS has continued
to turn up positive results for the drug’s potential therapeutic use.
Various <a href="http://mdmaptsd.org/research-category.html">clinical trials</a>
and statistical research have confirmed that MDMA can successfully
treat post-traumatic stress in military veterans and others. One <a href="http://www.alternet.org/drugs/mdma-ecstasy-lifesaver-vets-ptsd-its-time-bring-it-back-legal-therapy-tool">example</a> is the clinical trial led by Michael Mithoefer, which used MDMA-assisted psychotherapy to treat chronic PTSD.</div>
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<br /></div>
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A
2009 study offers a plausible explanation for MDMA’s effectiveness
treating PTSD. The double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study of
15 healthy individuals confirmed that MDMA causes the brain to release
oxytocin, which is the human hormone linked to feelings of love and
compassion.</div>
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MAPS recently received government approval to launch a <a href="http://www.mdma-autism.org/">new study</a> examining MDMA’s potential for treating social anxiety in autistic adults. Based on the known effects of <a href="http://www.mdma-autism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=13&Itemid=109">MDMA</a>, as well as individual reports, this <a href="http://www.mdma-autism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=10&Itemid=103">exploratory study</a> will focus on enhancing functional skills and quality of life in <a href="http://www.mdma-autism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=12&Itemid=105">autistic adults</a> with <a href="http://www.mdma-autism.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=14&Itemid=110">social anxiety</a>.</div>
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<strong>4. Psilocybin could kill smoking addiction. </strong></div>
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Psychiatry professor Matthew Johnson, who works at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, presented the preliminary <a href="http://www.maps.org/conference/clinicalsunday/">results</a>
of a pilot feasibility study looking at the ability of psilocybin to
treat smoking addiction at the 2013 Psychedelic Science conference in
Oakland, Calif. For the study, five cigarette-addicted participants
underwent placebo-controlled psilocybin treatment with a psychiatrist.
All five completely quit smoking after their first psilocybin session.
At all followup visits, which occurred up to one year later for the
first four participants, it was biologically confirmed that the
participants had abstained from cigarettes.</div>
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<strong>5. Ayahuasca can treat drug addictionand possibly much more.</strong><br />
<br />
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Ayahuasca
is a brew prepared with the Banisteriopsis caapi vine, originally used
for spiritual and healing purposes in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest.
The vine is usually mixed with leaves containing the psychedelic
compound DMT.</div>
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Gabor Mate, a medical doctor from Vancouver who is a prominent ayahuasca researcher, <a href="http://www.alternet.org/drugs/gabor-mate-ayahuasca-maps-conference-2013">contends</a>
that therapy assisted by psychedelics, and ayahuasca in particular, can
untangle complex, unconscious psychological stresses. He claims these
stresses underlie and contribute to all chronic medical conditions, from
cancer and addiction to depression and multiple sclerosis.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The <a href="http://www.maps.org/ayahuasca/Thomas_et_al_CDAR.pdf">results</a>
of the first North American observational study on the safety and
long-term effectiveness of ayahuasca treatment for addiction and
dependence were published in June 2013 in the journal Current Drug Abuse
Reviews. All of the participants in the study reported positive and
lasting changes, and the study found statistically significant
improvements “for scales assessing hopefulness, empowerment,
mindfulness, and quality of life meaning and outlook subscales.
Self-reported alcohol, tobacco and cocaine use declined, although
cannabis and opiate use did not.” The reported reductions in problematic
cocaine use were also statistically significant.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<strong>6. DMT occurs naturally in the human body, and taking it could simulate death.</strong></div>
<div dir="ltr">
<br /></div>
<div dir="ltr">
The drug <a href="http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dmt/dmt_journal1.shtml">DMT</a>
(diemethyltryptamine), which causes hallucinogenic experiences, is made
up of a chemical compound that already occurs within the human body <a href="about:blank">endogenously</a>
(as well as in a number of plants). This means our brains are naturally
set up to process the drug because it has receptors that exist
specifically to do so. Cannabis is another illegal drug that occurs <a href="http://norml.org/library/item/introduction-to-the-endocannabinoid-system">endogenously</a>. </div>
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Some <a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=rQeeTNHjdtgC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=DMT+death&ots=gUxMfxAXx5&sig=BaAhPW0Eq5VNO_491PPWkrK-Hpw#v=onepage&q=DMT%20death&f=false">research</a>
based on near-death experiences points to the fact that the brain
releases DMT during death. Some researchers have also conjectured that
DMT is released during other intense experiences, including orgasm.</div>
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<i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">April M. Short is an associate editor at AlterNet. Follow her on Twitter @AprilMShort.</span></span></i><br />
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-90308582626119841272014-04-15T07:15:00.000-07:002014-04-15T07:17:39.716-07:00Are Acid Flashbacks A Myth? Pretty Much so...<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/fyi-can-acid-trip-really-give-you-flashbacks" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Are Acid Flashbacks A Myth? </a></span></h2>
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<span class="prefix-text"></span> <span style="font-size: large;"> </span></h3>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Flashbacks do occur, but very rarely. </span></h3>
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<span class="byline_posted">Posted 09.23.2013 at 11:49 am </span><br />
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Psychedelia </div>
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Reports of drug-induced flashbacks have existed <a href="http://www.lycaeum.org/research/researchpdfs/1909.pdf">since the</a> <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14368965">1950s</a>. Though the term "flashback" wasn't used specifically until <a href="http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/article.aspx?articleID=151658">1969</a>,
as early as 1954 scientists noticed LSD users complaining of a
reoccurrence of an LSD-like state long after the drug's effects should
have worn off.<br />
<br />
The risk of a flashback has become a standard line in <a href="http://www.talktofrank.com/drug/lsd">anti-drug</a> <a href="http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/hallucinogens-lsd-peyote-psilocybin-pcp">messaging</a>.
Months or years after taking LSD, suddenly, the trip could come back
without warning, and suddenly you would be floridly hallucinating again.
An <a href="http://io9.com/5951972/could-you-actually-have-an-lsd-flashback-decades-taking-the-drug">urban legend</a> holds that molecules of LSD stay in the body, hiding in fat or in the spine, and can later be re-released.<br />
<br />
There are plenty of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_misconceptions_about_illegal_drugs#LSD">myths</a>
floating around about LSD use, though. So are flashbacks even real, or
just another example of public health messaging exaggerating the risks
of illicit drugs?<br />
<br />
A recent study published in <a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-08/psychedelics-dont-give-you-mental-health-problems-study-says">PLOS ONE</a>
by Norwegian University of Science and Technology neuroscientist Teri
Krebs found no association between using psychedelics, including using
LSD in the past year, and seeing things other people don't. But
psychiatrists who work with psychedelic users say that the phenomenon,
though very rare, is also very real.<br />
<br />
<span style="border-top: 5px solid black; color: #999999; float: right; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin: 5px 0.5em 0.25em; padding-left: 0.2em; padding-top: 0.25em; text-align: left; width: 40%;">"I don't think there's any question that HPPD is a genuine clinical phenomenon."</span>In 1986, the American Psychiatric Association's <i>Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders</i>
included diagnostic criteria for what later became known as
Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD), the clinical term
for seeing weird, trippy things like geometric hallucinations, flashes
of color, afterimages and false perceptions of movement after taking
psychedelics. To be considered a candidate for HPPD, the type of visual
phenomena that occurs during an acid trip has to spontaneously reappear
"long after the use of hallucinogens has stopped," cause significant
distress, and not be explainable by any other mental disorder or medical
condition. For many, it's less of a sudden "flashback" and more of a
continuous disturbance of vision. <br />
"I don't think there's any
question that HPPD is a genuine clinical phenomenon," says Charles Grob,
a professor of psychiatry at UCLA's medical school who does <a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/new-science-lsd-therapy?page=1">research with hallucinogens</a>.<br />
<br />
However, how many people are truly affected remains unknown. In a <a href="http://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/pdf/hppd.review.pdf">2002 review</a>
of the scientific literature on HPPD over the last 50 years,
psychiatrist John Halpern and his co-authors found most studies provided
too little information to estimate the prevalence "even crudely" of
HPPD in the population. "It is often unclear whether symptoms occurred
exclusively following hallucinogen intoxication," they write. "It is
also difficult to rule out other medical or psychiatric conditions that
might cause 'flashbacks', including current intoxication with another
drug, neurological conditions, current psychotic or affective disorders,
malingering, hypochondriasis, or even other anxiety disorders such as
posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)."<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376871610003200">One study</a>
found that 60 percent of 2,455 hallucinogen users who took a
self-reported survey on the drug information site erowid.org reported
experiencing some kind of visual phenomena, similar to those induced by
hallucinogens, when they had been drug-free for at least three days. A
lesser number, 4 percent of respondents, found this significantly
distressing. The study found LSD to be the most statistically robust
predicator of unusual visual experiences, compared to other drugs the
survey asked about, like pot, mushrooms and salvia. HPPD is primarily an
LSD-related phenomenon, though it's also been reported with MDMA use.<br />
<br />
"I
think the majority of people could trip relatively safely, but there's a
discrete percentage…Maybe one person in 20 will develop serious,
continuous problems related to the hallucinogenic experience," says
Henry David Abraham, the psychiatrist who pioneered the field of HPPD
research. "But that's true for virtually any drug."<br />
<br />
Halpern, an
assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, notes that
there's a difference between what we often consider a flashback and
HPPD. In the first case, "it could be as simple as a provocative
memory--the recollection is so strong it'll feel like they're tripping
again," he explains. "People with HPPD have something that is more
durable and chronic. It may last for weeks to months--people even report
years."<br />
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<img alt="" class="unveil-processed loaded full-visible" data-image_style="article_image_large" src="http://www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/styles/article_image_large/public/images/2013/04/LSD.jpg?itok=eTZiJES5" data-src="http://www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/styles/article_image_large/public/images/2013/04/LSD.jpg?itok=eTZiJES5" height="525" title="" width="525" />
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LSD Blotter<i> DEA </i></div>
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Usually with clear-cut cases of HPPD, someone has symptoms within a
day or two, or at least within a month of the drug use. When flashbacks
occur long after the actual drug use happens, there are often
confounding variables. "Because of the striking subjective effects of
psychedelics, some people attribute psychiatric symptoms to the use of
psychedelics even if the symptoms started months or years later," Krebs
and her co-author write in their study.<br />
<br />
Other authors have pointed out similar issues with HPPD studies. From a <a href="http://tpp.sagepub.com/content/2/5/199.full.pdf">German case study</a> of an HPPD patient:<br />
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The definition of this disease
entity is entirely based on studies involving chronic LSD users.
However, any additional psychopathological symptoms that may have
occurred in this patient population were not given any consideration.
Pharmacotherapy of this very distressing condition is limited and any
recommendations are based almost entirely on uncontrolled studies on
small patient populations or even single case observations.</div>
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<br />
The woman in question <a href="http://tpp.sagepub.com/content/2/5/199">reported</a>
taking up to 30 tabs of LSD over the course of a 1-year period when she
was 18, only to start experiencing flashbacks similar to LSD
intoxication at least two weeks after her last drug trip. This persisted
for 13 years.<br />
<br />
<span style="border-top: 5px solid black; color: #999999; float: right; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: bold; line-height: 1; margin: 5px 0.5em 0.25em; padding-left: 0.2em; padding-top: 0.25em; text-align: left; width: 40%;">"These
are folks who can stand on a street corner and a car can drive by, and
they'll see a trail of the car. They'll look at a blank wall and see
geometric patterns, they'll look at an arm and see a halo around the
arm...It's really an <i>Alice In Wonderland</i> kind of thing."</span>"It
appears to be a disorder largely of the perceptual system, which is
present 24/7," Abraham says. "These are folks who can stand on a street
corner and a car can drive by, and they'll see a trail of the car.
They'll look at a blank wall and see geometric patterns, they'll look at
an arm and see a halo around the arm," he describes. "It's really an <i>Alice In Wonderland</i> kind of thing." For roughly half of patients, he estimates, the disorder is lifelong.<br />
<br />
"We
do all kinds of things to not overwhelm our brains with sensory input,"
he says. "The problem with HPPD is the filters are down--they're seeing
things that the rest of us cannot see/filter out."<br />
<br />
People who
start seeing odd shapes and trails after using drugs can sometimes get
anxious that they've damaged their brain, and then they start paying
attention to the weird visual stuff that someone else might ignore,
exacerbating the problem. "Consider, it is not untypical for people to
become anxious about normal sensations or bodily feelings…Concerns that
something is wrong leads to increased attention on the 'symptoms',
setting up a feedback-loop of increasing anxiety," Krebs wrote me in an
email. "In case reports of HPPD in medical literature or internet
forums, the main problem typically is not the symptoms themselves but
the fear that they indicate 'drug-induced brain damage'."<br />
<br />
And
though scientists know HPPD exists, they still don't know exactly what
causes it. "I've spent my life studying this problem and I don't know,
is the short answer," Abraham says. "There are a number of clues--they
come back to the core concept, it's an imbalance within the inhibitory
circuits of the visual processing system."<br />
<br />
Beyond that, it's hard
to say who's at risk. According to Grob, it's a condition that's more
associated with frequent use of LSD, rather than just a once, though <a href="http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/student-theses/2012-1101-200711/UUindex.html">studies</a> have reported it happening after just one use. It has also been reported in people using <a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-03/fyi-ecstasy-safer-if-its-purer">MDMA</a>.<br />
<br />
And
because we know so little about the underlying mechanics of the
disorder, it's extremely difficult to treat. Researchers have had <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12598822">some luck</a> in treating it with <a href="http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/262809.php">benzodiazepines</a> (a class of drugs that includes <a href="http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-06/your-brain-can-make-its-own-valium">Valium</a>).
And therapy can help reassure people that in fact, they didn't break
their brain with drugs. However, some standard anti-psychotic
medications like <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8784656">risperidone</a> actually seem to make HPPD symptoms worse, as does cannabis use.<br />
<br />
But
if you've been seeing some weird stuff lately, rest easy knowing this:
Krebs and her co-author mention that essentially, anything can be linked
to going crazy. "Case reports of mental health problems following
psychedelics are often comparable to case reports of mental health
problems linked to <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1993-16390-001">intensive</a> <a href="http://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/108125">meditation</a>, visiting <a href="http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/176/1/86">holy sites</a>, or <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3027955/">viewing beautiful artwork</a> and sublime natural scenes," they write. And what happens when you're tripping on acid <i>while</i> looking at beautiful artwork? Somebody get on that.</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-7167213838658003722014-03-13T00:00:00.000-07:002014-03-13T00:03:39.047-07:00Oxytocin: could the 'trust hormone' rebond our troubled world?<div class="trackable-component" data-component="Article:guardian logo" id="guardian-logo">
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<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/aug/21/oxytocin-zak-neuroscience-trust-hormone" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Oxytocin: could the 'trust hormone' rebond our troubled world?</span></a></h2>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Lack
of trust is at the root of many of the world's problems, says American
neuroeconomist Paul Zak, who claims to have found the brain chemical
responsible for empathy. But could oxytocin really help to solve social
issues?</span></h3>
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Listening to Paul Zak extol the virtues of oxytocin, the "love
hormone", is like hearing a preacher sing the praises of the Promised
Land. His idea of a harmonious oxytocin-fuelled society is so seductive
you find yourself almost praying it were true. At the same time, you
cannot help but wonder if it might be an illusion.<br />
<br />
Oxytocin is
best known for its use in inducing labour. However, according to Zak,
the director of the Centre for Neuroeconomics at Claremont Graduate
University, California, it is also the "social glue" that binds
families, communities, and societies, and fosters trust between
strangers.<br />
<br />
To illustrate his point, at a recent appearance at TED
Edinburgh, Zak spritzed the backstage staff with oxytocin, prompting a
spontaneous outbreak of group hugging. Indeed, such is Zak's faith in
the bonding hormone that his licence plate reads "oxytosn". When he
texts me to agree a time for our interview, the message reads "From Dr
Love's iPhone".<br />
<br />
When we finally speak, Zak tells me that "oxytocin
is primarily a molecule of social connection. It affects every aspect
of social and economic life, from who we choose to make investment
decisions on our behalf to how much money we donate to charity. Oxytocin
tells us when to trust and when to remain wary, when to give and when
to hold back."<br />
<br />
But of all Zak's claims, perhaps the one with the
most profound social and economic implications, if true, is his
assertion that oxytocin is the "essence of empathy". Indeed, Zak
believes that his research provides a scientific basis for Scottish
Enlightenment thinker Adam Smith's insight that humans are essentially
"other-regarding" creatures, imbued at birth with a capacity for "fellow
feeling" ("Even the greatest ruffian," Smith wrote in 1759, "is not
entirely without it.")<br />
"It's the ultimate moral molecule," says Zak, who describes himself as a "born-again Smithian".<br />
<br />
In
a summer punctuated by the horrific massacre in Norway and the shocking
scenes of destruction and looting in London and other British cities,
that claim will strike many as optimistic. But Zak goes further, arguing
that many of the social and political issues that currently seem so
intractable could be solved if only we could find a way of raising
people's basal levels of oxytocin.<br />
<br />
As has been demonstrated at
Zak's lab in California, one way to achieve this is by getting
volunteers to inhale on an oxytocin nasal spray. But trust can also be
engendered by less invasive techniques, such as a 15-minute massage or
by logging on to social media – practices that Zak has shown also
elevate blood oxytocin levels; on a society-wide level, he argues, a
similar effect could be achieved by reducing disparities in income,
investing in education, and promoting greater freedom and opportunity.<br />
<br />
The
key, he says, is to kickstart a brain circuit called HOME (human
oxytocin-mediated empathy). But can it really be that simple? As the
London riots demonstrated, bonding with strangers and trusting the
instincts of the herd can lead just as easily to bad behaviour as good.
Besides, what does Zak's research tell us that we don't already know: if
you're kind to strangers, then your kindness will be reciprocated?
Isn't that the message of every great world religion from Christianity
to Buddhism?<br />
<br />
"We don't need the glamour of <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/science/neuroscience" title="More from the Guardian on Neuroscience">neuroscience</a> to tell us that Smith's observations about human nature are correct," argues Raymond Tallis, the author of <i>Aping Mankind: Neuromania, Darwinitis and the Misrepresentation of Humanity</i>.
"What is missing in this research is the sense that economic decisions
and trust are based on one's interactions at the whole person and the
whole community level. The brain is just the middle man."<br />
<br />
Oxytocin,
an extract from the human posterior pituitary gland, was discovered in
1909 when the British pharmacologist Sir Henry H Dale found it could
contract the uterus of a pregnant cat. He named the extract oxytocin,
from the Greek for "quick" and "birth". Within two years, doctors were
using oxytocin to bring on childbirth contractions. Dale later
discovered that oxytocin stimulated the release, or let-down, of
mother's milk by contracting the smooth-muscle cells around the mammary
glands.<br />
<br />
Today, synthetic oxytocin, also called Pitocin or
Syntocinon, is often used to induce labour and to help new mothers who
have trouble with milk let-down. Oxytocin is also given to women just
after birth to prevent postpartum haemorrhage.<br />
<br />
By the 1970s,
scientists had realised that oxytocin was also a neurotransmitter that
acted on the limbic system, the brain's emotional centre. The
game-changing insight, however, came from animal studies at the
University of Maryland showing that oxytocin played an important role in
fostering bonding and monogamous behaviour in prairie voles. In
addition, oxytocin has been shown to facilitate nurturing behaviour in
mice and rats: when oxytocin was blocked, the rodents stopped caring for
their young and displayed signs of "social amnesia".<br />
<br />
When Paul
Zak, a mathematician and economist by training, stumbled upon this
research in the 1990s he had an "aha" moment: the animal studies seemed
to describe emerging behaviours of trust and cooperation seen in humans.
Like others in his profession, he had grown frustrated with classical
economic models that assumed that humans were rational actors who always
sought to maximise their individual gains. In his experience, this was
not how most people made decisions. He set out to replicate the animal
experiments on volunteers engaged in monetary games designed to elicit
trust, and then tested their blood for oxytocin. He wondered if the
human subjects would show a similar spike in oxytocin?<br />
<br />
Shortly
after being granted tenure in 2001, Zak told the dean at Claremont that
he wouldn't be publishing for a while but instead had acquired a
centrifuge and cold freezer for storing blood products. The dean was
sceptical. "He told me that I was doing 'vampire economics'," recalls
Zak.<br />
<br />
There are many variations of the "trust game" but the basic
idea is that a person (player one) is given some money and told to send a
portion of it to a second person (player two), who has a one-off choice
to either accept or reject the proposal. If player two rejects, neither
player receives anything. If player two accepts, the money is split
according to the proposal. Typically low offers, less than a third of
player one's endowment, are rejected as stingy, ensuring that both
players get nothing.<br />
<br />
To test reciprocity, the game is varied so
that both players begin with an equal endowment, £10 say, but this time
player one's gift is tripled, and player two is then given the choice of
sending some money back to player one (the exchanges are conducted via
computer to ensure anonymity). For example, player one offers £3. Player
two now has £19 (£10 plus three times £3) and if he were to repay
player one's generosity by, for instance, sending him £4 back, player
one would leave the game with £11 and both would be better off. In
neuroeconomic parlance, the gift from player one is a "trust signal"
that prompts player two to reciprocate in kind.<br />
<br />
When Zak tested
the blood of players who had demonstrated trustworthy behaviour, he
found that their oxytocin levels had increased in proportion to the
monetary transfer. When he tweaked the experiment by making the transfer
amount dependent on the random draw of a ping-pong ball, he found that
those who were trusted had oxytocin levels 41% higher than the controls.
In other words, it was the signal of trust and not the receipt of money
that had prompted the surge of oxytocin.<br />
<br />
While this was strong
evidence of a correlation, however, it was not proof. Zak re-ran the
experiment but this time got half the participants to inhale oxytocin 50
minutes before playing (despite claims that oxytocin induces loving
feelings similar to ecstasy, in fact most people notice no change in
their affective state). Those who received the oxytocin spray sent back
17% more money compared with the placebo group. Not only that but the
number of people who showed maximal trust – sending their entire
endowment to a stranger – increased from 21% in the placebo group to 45%
in the oxytocin group.<br />
<br />
He has achieved these results in repeated
tests, including variations of the game to check for cognitive
impairment (in one, players are asked to donate earnings to the Red
Cross or the Red Crescent Society: oxytocin prompts 48% higher donations
but only to the Red Cross, a charity with which north American
participants are more familiar and comfortable).<br />
<br />
Zak's conclusions
are unequivocal. "Trust is chemical," he writes in one paper. "Social
norms, one's development history, and even current events affect trust,
but these do so by modulating OT release." Or, as he put it to me via
his Love phone: "HOME is a positive feedback loop. It literally feels
good to do good."<br />
But Zak's proselytism does not end there. In recent papers and a forthcoming book, <i>The Moral Molecule: Vampire Economics and the New Science of Good and Evil</i>,
Zak argues that oxytocin holds the key to human morality, policing the
"self-other divide" and subtly prodding us towards virtuous behaviour.<br />
<br />
For
Zak, oxytocin solves the puzzle of why, in practice, people tend to be
more trustworthy than the classic economic model predicts. But if we are
wired for trust rather than naked self-interest and the oxytocin system
is really so powerful, why isn't everyone virtuous all the time, and
why did people in the riots trash and burn their own neighbourhoods?<br />
<br />
Zak
invokes another hormone: testosterone. At times of stress, he argues,
we are physiologically in "survival mode", prompting the release of
testosterone and its bioactive metabolite, DHT. These stress hormones
prevent oxytocin from binding to brain receptors, tipping the balance
towards distrust and away from pro-social behaviour. This process, he
says, explains "the petty evils normally virtuous people exhibit". In
some cases, this bad behaviour may also be exacerbated by genetic and
environmental factors.<br />
<br />
In his blood-test experiments, for
instance, Zak found that 5% of participants did not release oxytocin
when trusted. These individuals, he says, "have some of the traits of
psychopaths". There is also evidence that the oxytocin receptors in
rats' forebrains tend to atrophy when maternal nurturing is
"insufficient". Furthermore, he found that women who had been abused in
childhood tended not to release oxytocin when prompted by trust signals
in the games.<br />
In the case of the riots, Zak believes that most of
the looters were probably "neurologically intact". The most likely
explanation for the mass criminality was that the line as to what was
morally acceptable within social groups in the affected areas shifted,
prompting the rioters to identify with "bad" influences. In other words,
it was a perfect storm of testosterone and "the wrong kind" of
oxytocin.<br />
<br />
It is at this point that, according to author Raymond
Tallis, the alarm bells should be ringing. "My sense of the riots is
that the breakdown in trust didn't result from a sudden, catastrophic
oxytocin shortage but relates to such things as education and parental
attitudes. In other words, there's nothing that neuroeconomics can tell
us that isn't better explained at a sociological level."<br />
Zak
argues that by measuring changes in the blood rather than relying on
fuzzy images from brain scans, his research is immune to the criticisms
usually levelled at neuroscientists. But Tallis questions whether
gauging blood oxytocin levels is a substitute for measuring the presence
of the hormone in the brain. "I might be similarly disposed to trust my
fellow human beings when I've had a couple of pints of beer," he says.
"But it doesn't follow that my whole attitude to being more disposed to
others is due to my brain alcohol level. Indeed, another couple of pints
on another occasion might have a very different effect."<br />
<br />
Tallis's
fundamental objection, however, is that the game scenarios employed by
Zak and other neuroeconomists do not come close to mimicking real-life
economic and social interactions. "I don't have anything against
oxytocin <i>per se</i>, it's a very fine molecule. It makes breasts
secrete milk, it makes uteruses contract, it gives women orgasms. Does
it really need another job?"<br />
<br />
This is not the first time
neuroscience has waxed lyrical about a brain chemical: similar claims
were made about dopamine and serotonin. Indeed, in one paper, Zak
appears to hedge his bets by showing that these are also involved in the
HOME circuit.<br />
<br />
However, Zak's faith is unshaken by the sceptics'
objections. "Our experiments are as causal as you can get, and the
results have been replicated many times," he tells me. "I wish you were
nearby so I could put you on some to see how it feels."<br />
<br />
It's a tempting offer.</div>
NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-4567964342378040942014-03-09T09:44:00.000-07:002014-03-09T09:44:12.582-07:00“Can Empathy Be Taught?”<br />
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<h1 class="title" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="color: red;">Can Empathy Be Taught? – Robert Moss</span></h1>
<b>
</b><div class="post-meta" style="text-indent: 0px;">
<b>Posted by <a href="http://www.neuropsychotherapist.com/author/bobmoss/" rel="author" title="Posts by Robert Moss">Robert Moss</a> on Nov 27, 2013 in <a href="http://www.neuropsychotherapist.com/category/bigquestions/" rel="category tag" title="View all posts in Big Questions">Big Questions</a></b></div>
<h2>
Robert Moss</h2>
<h4>
Big Question</h4>
<h2 style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.neuropsychotherapist.com/can-empathy-be-taught-robert-moss/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">“Can Empathy Be Taught?”</span></a></h2>
<br />
<span class="et-dropcap" style="color: #9b9b9b; font-size: 60px;">F</span>or
anyone who has done clinical supervision of graduate students, there is
no doubt that there are wide variations in the “natural” abilities of
students to utilize warmth, genuineness, and empathy in therapy
sessions. The ability of the therapist to convey to a client that there
is an accurate perception of his/her emotional state entails both an
accurate labeling and description by the therapist. However, those with
the more “natural” abilities also display both non-verbal (e.g., facial
expressions) and vocal (i.e., tone, inflections, and volume of voice)
behaviors that reinforce what is said. So the answer to the big question
from my perspective is that “what is said” is much easier to teach than
is the “how it is said.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<img alt="married-couple-consults-talkin-s" class="alignright size-full wp-image-3036" height="266" src="http://www.neuropsychotherapist.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/married-couple-consults-talkin-s.jpg" width="400" /><br />
<br />
Textbooks
and supervisors can provide suggestions on what words to use in
situations that can provide the client with the verbal recognition of
his/her emotional condition. In relation to the “neurobiology” of
empathy, my theory is that it relates to the cortical hemispheres (Moss,
2006, 2007, 2010, 2013; Moss, Hunter, Shah, & Havens, 2012). The
left hemisphere for most individuals is dominant for spoken language.
Thus, the therapist can learn the verbal components and, in turn, voice
this to a client’s left hemisphere relatively easily. Over time a
therapist learns more statements and practices these across clients.<br />
<br />
If accurate information is given to the client, the verbalized
descriptions (processed by the client’s left hemisphere’s “verbal
interpreter”) provide an explanation for the non-verbal emotional
processing of the client’s right cortex. I (Moss, 2013) have suggested
this reduces the conflict (allowing “interhemispheric congruence”)
between the two sides with the result being that the client perceives
more self-acceptance, internal peace, and may experience an emotional
release (e.g., becoming tearful). The self-acceptance involves the left
hemisphere’s verbal interpreter recognizing the right hemisphere’s
emotion is reasonable (i.e., developing a new schema). The internal
peace is a function of decreased inhibitory activity between the right
and left frontal lobes. The emotional release is a function of decreased
left frontal inhibition on the right frontal lobe which controls the
behavioral expression of affective responses.<br />
When the client has a change in affect, this in turn is processed by the
therapist’s right hemisphere. It is the right hemisphere processing
that allows a therapist to learn experientially to sense when desired
affective response is occurring with a client. In turn, the therapist’s
right frontal lobe is primarily responsible for the non-verbal and vocal
behaviors in terms of “how” therapeutic information is given. In an
article I wrote on negative emotional memories, I noted that in relation
to learning non-verbal therapy skills:<br />
<blockquote>
Clinical experience would be the only means of forming
these expressive experiential memories. This leads to the logical
conclusion that many experienced, practicing clinicians have more
extensive therapy-related experiential right hemisphere receptive and
expressive memories than do many academic clinicians. Manualized ESTs
cannot teach therapists these right cortical memories since these can
only develop as a result of experience with “real world” clients.
However, it is possible to use manuals to make therapists verbally aware
(i.e., left cortex) of important in-session behaviors that can
influence treatment outcome. Additionally, modeled behaviors can be
rehearsed by novice therapists with videotaped feedback. Making
therapists verbally aware and utilizing experiential training techniques
could increase the speed with which these important skills are learned.
(Moss, 2007, pp. 218-219)</blockquote>
Few neuroscience professionals will contest the fact that all people
learn a “native” verbal language based on the language to which they are
exposed during childhood. This appears to occur bilaterally to some
degree initially. Yet, the capacity of the left hemisphere to handle the
detailed memories tied to spoken language likely leads it to assume
final primary control. Similarly, the quick and efficient processing in
the right hemisphere allows it to effectively handle the non-detailed
analysis and expression of non-verbal emotional components in
relationships. Just as we develop a native verbal language of the left
hemisphere, we develop a “native emotional language” of the right
hemisphere. For those “natural” empathic individuals, the native
emotional language they learned as a child involved those non-verbal
skills.<br />
<br />
The critical period for learning two languages and being truly
bilingual is around the age of 8. It is possible to learn a second
language later, but it will not ever be perfected. If what I have
described is accurate, we learn our native emotional language and this
will be with us for the rest of our lives. For those who developed
empathic non-verbal skills early, these will remain and only get
stronger. Perhaps these individuals have the ability to become “super”
therapists, but not even be aware of exactly how they are accomplishing
such therapeutic effects. For those who are not “naturals,” they can
still get quite efficient in non-verbal therapy skills with sufficient
training and experience. However, they will be comparable to someone who
developed the use of a second verbal language after the critical
period.<br />
<br />
I hope this may stimulate some thought for the readers. My articles
listed below are available on my contribution page at researchgate.net
and academia.edu, as well as at my website <a href="http://www.emotionalrestructuring.com/" target="_blank" title="Emotional Restructuring">www.emotionalrestructuring.com</a> under current papers.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<strong>References</strong></h3>
<br />
Moss, R. A. (2006). Of bits and logic: Cortical columns in learning and memory. The Journal of Mind and Behavior, 27, 215-246.<br />
Moss, R. A. (2007). Negative emotional memories in clinical practice:
Theoretical considerations. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 17,
209-224.<br />
Moss, R. A. (2010). Clinical Biopsychology: Could A Grand Theory
Actually Exist To Allow True Psychotherapy Integration? Independent
Practitioner, 30, 67-71.<br />
Moss, R. A., Hunter, B. P., Shah, D., & Havens, T. (2012). A theory
of hemispheric specialization based on cortical columns. Journal of Mind
and Behavior, 33, 141-172.<br />
Moss, R. A. (2013). Psychotherapy and the brain: The dimensional systems
model and clinical biopsychology. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 34,
63-89.<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="author-image">
<img alt="" src="http://www.neuropsychotherapist.com/wp-content/uploads/et_temp/bobMoss_s-25977_57x57.jpg" />
</div>
<div class="author-info">
Bob Moss is a clinical psychologist who works with Bon Secours St.
Francis Hospital in Greenville, SC, USA. He is board certified in
clinical psychology and neuropsychology. He is a former associate
professor in clinical psychology and was in private practice for over 20
years. He has authored a number of professional articles and has
presented at a number of local, national, and international professional
meetings. His website is www.emotionalrestructuring.com and email is
rmoss@emotionalrestructuring.com.
</div>
NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-14734536403205432502014-03-09T07:47:00.003-07:002014-03-09T07:50:20.615-07:00Neuroplasticity, Psychosocial Genomics, and the Biopsychosocial Paradigm in the 21st Century<br />
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<img alt="Logo of nihpa" src="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/corehtml/pmc/pmcgifs/logo-nihpa.gif" usemap="#logo-imagemap" /><map id="logo-imagemap" name="logo-imagemap"><area alt="About Author manuscripts" coords="0,57,249,74" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/about/authorms.html" shape="rect" title="About Author manuscripts"></area><area alt="Submit a manuscript" coords="250,57,499,74" href="http://www.nihms.nih.gov/" shape="rect" target="pmc_ext" title="Submit a manuscript"></area><area alt="NIH Public Access; Author Manuscript; Accepted for publication in peer reviewed journal;" coords="0,0,499,74" href="http://publicaccess.nih.gov/" shape="rect" target="pmc_ext" title="NIH Public Access; Author Manuscript; Accepted for publication in peer reviewed journal;"></area></map></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Health Soc Work. Author manuscript; available in PMC Sep 6, 2010.</b></span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Published in final edited form as:</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-left: 1em;">
<div class="fm-vol-iss-date">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span class="citation-version"></span><span class="citation-abbreviation">Health Soc Work. </span><span class="citation-publication-date">Aug 2009; </span><span class="citation-volume">34</span><span class="citation-issue">(3)</span><span class="citation-flpages">: 191–199. </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span class="fm-citation-ids-label">PMCID: </span>PMC2933650</b></span></div>
<div class="fm-citation-manuscriptid">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span class="fm-citation-ids-label">NIHMSID: </span>NIHMS217651</b></span><br />
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<h2 class="content-title" lang="en">
<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Neuroplasticity, Psychosocial Genomics, and the Biopsychosocial Paradigm in the 21<sup>st</sup> Century</span></a></h2>
<div class="half_rhythm">
<div class="contrib-group fm-author">
<br />
<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Garland%20E%5Bauth%5D">Eric Garland</a>, Ph.D., LCSW</div>
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College of Social Work Florida State University Tallahassee, FL 32308</div>
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<a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Howard%20MO%5Bauth%5D">Matthew Owen Howard</a>, Ph.D., <span class="fm-role">Frank Daniels Distinguished Professor of Social Policy</span></div>
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See other articles in PMC that <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/citedby/">cite</a> the published article.</div>
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<div class="tsec sec" id="__abstractid523129" lang="en">
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<span role="menubar"><a class="tgt_dark page-toc-label jig-ncbiinpagenav-goto-heading" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#" role="menuitem" title="Go to other sections in this page">Go to:</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Abstract</span></h3>
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<div class="p p-first-last" id="P1">
The
biopsychosocial perspective is a foundation of social work theory and
practice. Recent research on neuroplasticity and psychosocial genomics
lends compelling support to this perspective by elucidating mechanisms
through which psychosocial forces shape neurobiology. Investigations of
neuroplasticity demonstrate that the adult brain can continue to form
novel neural connections and grow new neurons in response to learning or
training even into old age. These findings are complemented by the
contributions of psychosocial genomics, a field of scientific inquiry
that explores the modulating effects of experience on gene expression.
Findings from these new sciences provide external validation for the
biopsychosocial perspective and offer important insights into the
manifold means by which socioenvironmental experiences influence
neurobiological structure and function across the life course.</div>
<div class="p p-first-last" id="P1">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="sec">
<b class="kwd-title">Keywords: </b><span class="kwd-text">biopsychosocial, neuroplasticity, psychosocial genomics, gene-environment interaction</span></div>
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<div class="tsec sec" id="S1">
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<h3 class="head no_bottom_margin ui-helper-clearfix" id="S1title">
<span style="font-size: large;">Introduction</span></h3>
<div class="p p-first" id="P2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P2">
Social work professionals in the 21<sup>st</sup>
Century have adopted the biopsychosocial paradigm. This paradigm, first
articulated by the physician, George Engel, holds that humans are
dynamic systems whose functioning depends on the holistic integration of
biological, psychological, and social factors (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R15" id="__tag_195842132" role="button">Engel, 1977</a>);
indeed, according to the biopsychosocial model, these factors are
fundamentally interrelated and interdependent. Although Engel rejected
the reductionism of the dominant biomedical model of his era, which
assumed that molecular biological processes (e.g., genes and
biochemistry) immutably dictated physiology and behavior, a
simple-minded biological determinism nonetheless took root and became
widely, if uncritically, accepted. At its inception, there was scant
evidence to support Engel's biopsychosocial perspective; however,
scientific discoveries of the past decade have provided important new
findings validating and elaborating the biopsychosocial paradigm.</div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P2">
<br /></div>
<div id="P3">
Over
the past decade, two fields of empirical investigation, neuroplasticity
and psychosocial genomics, have offered important findings that may
lead to a paradigm shift in our conceptions of psyche and soma and the
modes of their interrelationships. These two fields mutually inform one
another, depicting interpenetrating biopsychosocial relationships on
different scales: neuroplasticity research describes how neurons within
the brain proliferate and grow new connections across the lifespan,
whereas psychosocial genomics describes the processes by which
psychological and social experiences activate or deactivate genes,
thereby driving the development of new neural pathways. The interplay of
these sciences reflects a vision of humans as inherently resilient;
psychosocial factors appear to stimulate gene expression within neurons
resulting in alterations to the structure and function of the brain.
Discoveries from both fields reveal that experience and learning can
contribute to positive change, even at the neurobiological and
structural levels.</div>
<div id="P3">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-last" id="P4">
Social work
academicians have embraced the biopsychosocial perspective; yet, many
are perhaps not fully aware of recent developments in genomic and
neurobiological research with implications for social work and the
biopsychosocial perspective. This research provides insights into the
very substrates of biopsychosocial change. Thus, we review recent
neuroplasticity and psychosocial genomics research and its implications
for current understanding and application of the biopsychosocial
perspective.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<h3 class="head no_bottom_margin ui-helper-clearfix" id="S2title">
<span style="font-size: large;">Neuroplasticity</span></h3>
<div class="sec sec-first" id="S3">
<h3>
Basic neurotransmission</h3>
<div class="p p-first-last" id="P5">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-first-last" id="P5">
The
human brain is a complex, self-organizing, biological system,
consisting of trillions of interconnected nerve cells called neurons.
The operation of neurons results in two distinct forms of information
processing: signaling and integration. Each neuron propagates signals
via action potentials, electrochemical currents that travel the length
of its axon. This current leads to the release of neurotransmitters
which traverse synapses, the gaps between neurons. These chemical
messages are received via specialized receptor cells at the ends of
numerous, tree-like branches of the receiving neuron, called dendrites.
The stimulation of dendritic receptors by neurotransmitters leads to
integration, whereby large amounts of information from many neurons is
summed up before reaching a threshold to fire the action potential down
the next axon. In this manner, perceptual information from the external
environment and the internal milieu of the body is transmitted and
processed in the brain, leading to cognition, emotion, and behavior, the
essence of human experience.</div>
<div class="p p-first-last" id="P5">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="sec" id="S4">
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Origins of neuroplasticity research</span></h3>
<div class="p p-first" id="P6">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P6">
The
brains of infants and children are known to be plastic, undergoing
spurts of neuronal development in response to stimulus exposure during
critical periods (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R39" id="__tag_195842130" role="button">Mundkur, 2005</a>).
This development consists of the genesis of neurons, increased
connectivity between extant neurons, and the routing of new synaptic
connections between previously unrelated neurons. However, before 1998,
it was widely accepted that neuronal connections in the adult brain were
immutable; the neurons that populated a given brain area were thought
to be fixed in accordance with whatever form and function the genetic
code prescribed for that region (<a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R1" role="button">Begley, 2006</a>).
In addition, the conventional wisdom at the time--that no new neurons
could be generated after injury or insult to the brain—was held with
conviction on the part of leading neuroscientists.</div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P6">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-last" id="P7">
However,
upon discovery of the growth of new neural tissue, or neurogenesis, in
the adult human hippocampus, a brain region responsible for memory (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R16" id="__tag_195842081" role="button">Eriksson et al., 1998</a>),
the dogma of the “hardwired brain” was formally repudiated. This
finding complemented earlier evidence from primate studies demonstrating
that novel sensory experience and learning new behaviors triggers
neuronal growth in the somatosensory and motor cortices, areas of the
brain subserving tactile perception and limb movement (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R26" id="__tag_195842087" role="button">Jenkins, Merzenich, Ochs, Allard, & Guic-Robles, 1990</a>; <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R40" id="__tag_195842114" role="button">Nudo, Milliken, Jenkins, & Merzenich, 1996</a>).
Subsequent to the discovery of neurogenesis in the adult human brain,
neuroscience has pursued this line of investigation with vigor, aided by
advances in brain imaging techniques such as magnetic-resonance
imaging.</div>
<div class="p p-last" id="P7">
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</div>
<div class="sec" id="S5">
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Neuroplasticity research findings</span></h3>
<div class="p p-first" id="P8">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P8">
The
growth of neurons has been documented in the brains of adults exposed
to a variety of experiences. For instance, violinists evidence neural
growth in the portion of their somatosensory cortex devoted to their
fingering hand through hours of musical practice (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R14" id="__tag_195842111" role="button">Elbert, Pantev, Wienbruch, Rockstroh, & Taub, 1995</a>), as do persons engaged in the practice of juggling (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R11" id="__tag_195842080" role="button">Draganski et al., 2004</a>).
In addition to such physical training, mental practice may promote
neuroplasticity: neurogenesis can occur in the motor cortex just by
imagining playing the piano (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R41" id="__tag_195842115" role="button">Pascual-Leone, Amedi, Fregni, & Merabet, 2005</a>).
Similarly, taxicab drivers develop the areas of their brains involved
in spatial relationships by memorizing the labyrinthine streets and
avenues of the cities in which they work (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R32" id="__tag_195842095" role="button">Maguire et al., 2000</a>).
While the underlying mechanisms are different, neuroplasticity research
suggests that challenging learning experiences can lead to the
development of brain tissue analogous to the way physical exercise can
lead to the development of muscle tissue.</div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P8">
<br /></div>
<div id="P9">
One area of
research that has found significant evidence of mental training leading
to neuroplastic modifications in brain activity focuses on the study of
meditation. Meditation, while greatly varying in technique and purpose
across the diverse spiritual and cultural traditions where it is
employed, may be generally defined as the intentional practice whereby
one grasps “the handle of cognition” to cultivate a competent use of his
or her own mental capacities, gaining agency over thought and emotion (<a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R10" role="button">Depraz, Varela, & Vermersch, 2003</a>). Such intentional mental training has been shown to induce functional neurobiological changes.</div>
<div id="P9">
<br /></div>
<div id="P10">
A
study by Lutz and colleagues found marked alterations in the
synchronization of neurons as an effect of long-term training in
Buddhist loving-kindness meditation, a practice which is thought by some
practitioners to promote a state of unconditional compassion and
benevolence (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R31" id="__tag_195842105" role="button">Lutz, Greischar, Rawlings, Ricard, & Davidson, 2004</a>). Neural synchrony of the type observed in this study may be indicative of coherent and integrated psychological functioning (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R60" id="__tag_195842104" role="button">Williams et al., 2005</a>).
The synchronization of brain activity found in some of the
practitioners sampled, whose experience ranged between 10,000 and 50,000
hours spent in meditation, was higher than any previously reported in
the literature. Such increased neural synchrony was observed not only
during the meditative state, but also when the practitioners were not
meditating, suggesting that long-term mental practice can induce
lasting, trait-level changes possibly mediated by structural
modifications to the brain (<a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R1" role="button">Begley, 2006</a>).</div>
<div id="P10">
<br /></div>
<div id="P11">
Other
research has documented changes in neurobiological function as a result
of mindfulness meditation, the practice of cultivating a
present-centered, metacognitive awareness, “a naturalistic state wherein
consciousness transcends its content to rest upon the dynamics of its
own processes” (<a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R21" role="button">Garland, 2007</a>). A recent study by <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R55" id="__tag_195842090" role="button">Slagter et al. (2007)</a>
compared attentional performance of a group of experienced meditators
participating in a 3-month mindfulness meditation retreat to that of a
novice control group who received a 1-hour meditation class and were
asked to meditate 20 minutes daily for one week. Relative to controls,
experienced meditators evidenced significant improvements in attentional
performance that correlated with alterations in brain activity. This
cognitive enhancement was maintained 3 months after formal meditation
practice, providing suggestive evidence that mental training can
stimulate neuroplastic changes in the adult human brain (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R55" id="__tag_195842079" role="button">Slagter et al., 2007</a>).</div>
<div id="P11">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-last" id="P12">
While
the work of Slagter et al. and Lutz et al. provide tentative support
for meditation-induced neuroplasticity, neither study examined
structural brain changes per se. However, two structural MRI
investigations comparing the brains of experienced meditators to control
subjects matched in sex, age, race, and years of education found that
years of meditation experience correlated with increased cortical
thickness in brain areas where visceral attention (e.g. right anterior
insula) and self-awareness (e.g. left superior temporal gyrus) have been
localized (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R24" id="__tag_195842106" role="button">Holzel et al., 2008</a>; <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R29" id="__tag_195842098" role="button">Lazar et al., 2005</a>).
These empirical investigations of meditation suggest that mental
training may stimulate structural alterations reflective of
neuroplasticity.</div>
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</div>
<div class="sec sec-last" id="S6">
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Clinical implications of neuroplasticity research</span></h3>
<div class="p p-first" id="P13">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P13">
The
finding that experience and training can lead to the development of new
neural connections has key implications. For example, persons suffering
from what was once thought to be permanent brain injury can heal
through rehabilitation designed to stimulate the damaged area, such as
in the case of stroke (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R57" id="__tag_195842122" role="button">Taub et al., 2006</a>).
However, although largely speculative, it is possible that
neuroplasticity may undergird not only rehabilitation of physical
illness but that of select psychological disorders as well, mediating
natural recovery from mental illness in some cases as well as
improvements related to psychosocial interventions. At present, it has
been demonstrated that psychotherapy can induce functional changes in
brain activation. For example, a brain imaging study found that persons
with obsessive-compulsive disorder who were treated with a
mindfulness-oriented form of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
exhibited functional changes in the orbital frontal cortex and striatum,
two brain structures found to be overactive in OCD (<a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R52" role="button">Schwartz & Begley, 2002</a>). Other studies have demonstrated psychotherapy-related alterations in brain circuits involved in depression (e.g. <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R23" id="__tag_195842118" role="button">Goldapple et al., 2004</a>; <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R33" id="__tag_195842088" role="button">Martin, Martin, Rai, Richardson, & Royall, 2001</a>). CBT has also been associated with changes in frontal and temporal brain regions of persons suffering from panic disorder (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R45" id="__tag_195842126" role="button">Prasko et al., 2004</a>).
Such intervention-related changes in both psychosocial function and
neural activity may correlate with neuroplastic alterations to the
brain; critically, a combined functional and structural magnetic
resonance imaging study of practice-induced increases in gray matter
found that increased task-specific brain activation led to the
remodeling of one of the same neural structures (i.e. dorsolateral
occipital cortex) that was activated by the practice and learning of the
task (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R25" id="__tag_195842131" role="button">Ilg et al., 2008</a>).</div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P13">
<br /></div>
<div id="P14">
Neuroplasticity
research of psychosocial interventions has just begun. A recent
longitudinal study of cognitive-behavioral therapy for women with
chronic fatigue syndrome found increases in gray matter of the lateral
prefrontal cortex after 16 sessions of CBT (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R8" id="__tag_195842083" role="button">de Lange et al., 2008</a>).
Increases in gray matter volume correlated with enhanced cognitive
processing speed, suggesting that the neuroplasticity evoked by
psychotherapy played a causal role in rehabilitation of cognitive
performance after cerebral atrophy resulting from chronic fatigue.</div>
<div id="P15">
Indeed,
neuroplasticity may be the biological mechanism through which
psychosocial interventions exert at least some of their therapeutic
effects. During psychotherapy, when the client recalls negative or
painful life experiences, the clinician may assist in reframing the
context so that the experience gains new meaning (<a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R9" role="button">de Shazer, 1988</a>).
For instance, in treating persons who have experienced traumas such as
rape, therapy may help clients to envision themselves as a survivor
rather than as a victim. Such reframing or reappraisal may be a critical
component of successful biopsychosocial outcomes (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R18" id="__tag_195842109" role="button">Folkman, 1997</a>; <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R42" id="__tag_195842123" role="button">Penley, Tomaka, & Wiebe, 2002</a>).
Some theorists hypothesize that the process of recalling,
reconstructing, and reframing memories of past trauma during
psychotherapy is mediated by the reorganization and genesis of neurons (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R4" id="__tag_195842094" role="button">Centonze, Siracusano, Calabresi, & Bernardi, 2005</a>; <a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R50" role="button">E.L. Rossi, 2005</a>).
This hypothesis is founded on evidence that the formation of new
long-term memories results from neuroplastic changes in the brain
structure known as the hippocampus. Hippocampal changes appear within
hours of significant learning experiences (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R36" id="__tag_195842108" role="button">McGaugh, 2000</a>), such as those that can occur during psychotherapy.</div>
<div id="P15">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-last" id="P16">
Neuroplasticity
is mediated at the cellular level through activity-dependent gene
expression, the mechanism by which neurons secrete growth factors
leading to the “activation of gene transcription in the nucleus that
support[s] synaptic connections…Thus, with every new experience, the
brain slightly rewires its physical structure and this rewiring is
mediated through the signaling cascade” (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R39" id="__tag_195842093" role="button">Mundkur, 2005</a>). Hence, in order to understand neuroplasticity, we must consider the domain of psychosocial genomics.</div>
<div class="p p-last" id="P16">
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</div>
</div>
<div class="tsec sec" id="S7">
<div class="goto jig-ncbiinpagenav-goto-container">
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<h3 class="head no_bottom_margin ui-helper-clearfix" id="S7title">
<span style="font-size: large;">Psychosocial Genomics</span></h3>
<div class="sec sec-first" id="S8">
<h3>
<span style="font-size: small;">Basic epigenetics</span></h3>
<div class="p p-first" id="P17">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P17">
In
the 21st century, there is broad agreement that the genome is the basis
of human life and a precondition for psychosocial experience.
Nevertheless, the question of the respective roles of nature and nurture
in human experience and the manner of their interaction in select
contexts remains contentious, despite the more than half-century that
has transpired since <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R59" id="__tag_195842133" role="button">Watson and Crick (1953)</a> identified DNA as the building block of biological processes.</div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P17">
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<div id="P18">
The
DNA code of the human genome does not determine protein synthesis in a
one-toone fashion; instead, genes are subject to epigenetic processes
(i.e. modifications that do not occur due to changes in the basic
genetic sequence of amino acids but that instead result from biological
and environmental influences on the expression of genes as proteins) (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R13" id="__tag_195842110" role="button">Eisenberg, 2004</a>).
During gene expression, the genetic code serves as a “blueprint” that
guides the construction of proteins from amino acids. However, this
construction process is modulated by signals from the internal and
external environments, which steer and modify the manner in which basic
organic molecules are organized into anatomy and physiology. Although
genes prescribe protein synthesis, there is substantial variability in
the manner in which they are expressed.</div>
<div id="P18">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-last" id="P19">
A
single genotype, the genetic blueprint of an organism, can be expressed
in a multiplicity of distinct physiological and behavioral forms, known
as phenotypes. This is evident in <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R13" id="__tag_195842084" role="button">Eisenberg's (2004)</a>
example of phenylketonuria, a disorder that when untreated may lead to
severe mental retardation, psychosis, and seizures. If children with
this genetic abnormality are kept on a postnatal diet low in the amino
acid phenyalanine, they do not develop these disorders. Hence, although
the genotype for phenylketonuria does not change, its phenotypic
expression is modified by the environment (i.e., nutrition) to which the
individual has been exposed. The mechanisms by which such different
phenotypes are expressed are just beginning to be understood, but appear
to involve the regulatory effect of internal and external environmental
signals on stress hormones, which in turn modify gene transcription
processes (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R27" id="__tag_195842089" role="button">Kandel, 1998</a>; <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R49" id="__tag_195842127" role="button">E. L. Rossi, 2004</a>).</div>
<div class="p p-last" id="P19">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="sec" id="S9">
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Learning and other psychosocial experiences may modulate gene expression</span></h3>
<div class="p p-first" id="P20">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P20">
In addition to physical environmental forces, learning experiences in the social environment can alter gene expression (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R35" id="__tag_195842096" role="button">McCutcheon, 2006</a>).
The bi-directional relationship of nature and nurture, genes and
environment, was first demonstrated in a series of path-breaking studies
of maternal care in rats (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R19" id="__tag_195842102" role="button">Francis, Champagne, Liu, & Meaney, 1999</a>; <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R30" id="__tag_195842125" role="button">Liu et al., 1997</a>).
In these studies, an inverse relationship was found between the number
of stress hormone receptors in a rat's hippocampus and its tendency to
exhibit stress reactions. The number of these receptors is dictated by
the genotype of the rat. Highly stress-reactive rats give low levels of
maternal care to their offspring, who, in turn, exhibit high stress
reactivity and later provide low levels of maternal care to their
offspring. However, these studies revealed that hormonal and behavioral
stress reactions of rat pups as well as the number of their stress
hormone receptors are modulated by the licking, grooming, and nursing
behaviors of their mothers. Even if a rat were born with a genotype
coding for fewer stress hormone receptors, if it was reared by an
adoptive mother providing high levels of maternal care, the rat's genes
produced more stress receptors, making it calmer, less reactive to
stressors, and more apt to provide maternal care to its offspring. These
findings offer some evidence that social behavior may be inherited and
transduced via gene expression into neuroplastic alterations in brain
structure, leading to psychobiological learning and change.</div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P20">
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<div id="P21">
The
notion that social experience can lead to changes in gene expression
was voiced most prominently by Nobel laureate, Eric Kandel, who regarded
this observation as the core component of a new paradigm for psychiatry
(1998). Kandel summarized the current state of biological thinking with
regard to the relation between social experiences and neurobiology,
observing that:
<br />
<blockquote class="pullquote">
<div id="P22">
The regulation of gene
expression by social factors makes all bodily functions, including all
functions of the brain, susceptible to social influences. These social
influences will be biologically incorporated in the altered expressions
of specific genes in specific nerve cells of specific regions of the
brain. These socially influenced alterations are transmitted culturally (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R27" id="__tag_195842101" role="button">Kandel, 1998</a>, p. 461).</div>
</blockquote>
This powerful claim, while supported by over a decade of rigorous
research, has rarely been directly tested. However, advances in
psychoendoneuroimmunology, the study of how mental processes affect the
immune system, have clearly shown the effects of psychological and
social factors on human physiological functions that indirectly involve
the genetic replication of cells (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R46" id="__tag_195842086" role="button">Ray, 2004</a>).
Such alterations of biological function may be mediated through
experience-dependent gene expression, the process whereby
social-environmental signals turn genes “on” and “off,” leading to
alterations in protein synthesis which ultimately result in
physiological changes (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R43" id="__tag_195842124" role="button">Pinaud, 2004</a>).</div>
</div>
<div class="sec sec-last" id="S10">
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;">Psychosocial genomic hypotheses</span></h3>
<div id="P23">
<br />
Although
our genes provide a basic outline for development, environmental
influences such as social experiences shape gene expression and
ultimately make us unique individuals. This interaction is the essence
of what <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R48" id="__tag_195842082" role="button">Rossi (2002)</a>
has termed “psychosocial genomics,” the interdisciplinary study of the
processes by which gene expression is modulated by psychological,
social, and cultural experiences. Practitioners might profit from
knowing more about this new science, for according to Kandel:
<br />
<blockquote class="pullquote">
<div id="P24">
Insofar as psychotherapy
or counseling is effective and produces long-term changes in behavior,
it presumably does so though learning, through producing changes in gene
expression that alter the strength of synaptic connections and
structural changes that alter the anatomical pattern of nerve cells of
the brain (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R27" id="__tag_195842091" role="button">Kandel, 1998</a>, p. 460)</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div id="P25">
Thus,
it is conceivable that psychosocial interventions, the tools of social
work practice, may produce alterations in gene expression leading, in
some cases, to measurable neurobiological changes. Since can stress
affect neurogenesis through alterations in gene expression and
transcription (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R22" id="__tag_195842129" role="button">Glaser et al., 1990</a>; <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R58" id="__tag_195842117" role="button">Warner-Schmidt & Duman, 2006</a>), ultimately leading to dysregulation of affect (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R44" id="__tag_195842116" role="button">Post, 1992</a>),
psychosocial interventions designed to reduce distress and improve mood
may affect brain structure and function through this pathway. <a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R38" role="button">Muenke (2008)</a>
has recently suggested that the therapeutic effects of stress-reduction
techniques might be mediated by changes in gene expression. In line
with this hypothesis, a recent study of a meditative breathing practice
found increased gene expression of the immune factors glutathione
S-transferase, Cox-2, and HSP-70 in practitioners relative to controls (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R54" id="__tag_195842113" role="button">Sharmaa et al., 2008</a>).
While this study supports the psychosocial genomic hypothesis, its
cross-sectional design does not allow for confident inferences vis-à-vis
causality. However, in light of this potential shortcoming, a
longitudinal study examined gene expression before and after exposure to
eight weeks of meditation training (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R12" id="__tag_195842119" role="button">Dusek et al., 2008</a>),
and found alterations in the expression of 1561 genes after the
intervention. Among these changes were increases in the expression of
genes associated with the stress response, suggesting that learning to
engage the relaxation response through meditation may attenuate the
deleterious impact of stress on cellular processes.</div>
<div id="P25">
<br /></div>
<div id="P26">
Although
controlled psychosocial genomic research is uncommon, there are a
growing number of psychosocial intervention studies that do measure
physiological outcomes such as blood levels of cortisol or immune
factors. For instance, stress reduction interventions have been shown to
increase numbers of immune cells and decrease numbers of cells
associated with allergic reactivity (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R3" id="__tag_195842085" role="button">Castes et al., 1999</a>), and improve antibody response to the flu vaccine (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R7" id="__tag_195842120" role="button">Davidson et al., 2003</a>). Intervention-related changes in such biological markers may serve as indirect measures of alterations in gene expression.</div>
<div id="P26">
<br /></div>
<div id="P27">
The
new scientific paradigm outlined above provides a perspective on how
the biopsychosocial constitutions of practitioners and clients might
interact in the act of therapy:
<br />
<blockquote class="pullquote">
<div id="P28">
When a therapist speaks to
a patient and the patient listens, the therapist is not only making eye
contact and voice contact, but the action of neuronal machinery in the
therapist's brain is having an indirect, and, one hopes, long-lasting
effect on the neuronal machinery in the patient's brain; and quite
likely, vice versa. Insofar as our words produce changes in our
patient's mind, it is likely that these psychotherapeutic interventions
produce changes in the patient's brain. From this perspective, the
biological and sociopsychological approaches are joined. (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R27" id="__tag_195842092" role="button">Kandel, 1998</a>, p. 466)</div>
</blockquote>
The union of neuroplasticity and psychosocial genomics research
represents a synthesis of the social and biological sciences that is
non-reductive: it does not dismiss human experience as the product of a
neural machine, pre-determined by its genetic blueprint. Instead, it is
integrative, inclusive, and holistic; this unitary approach reveals the
power of thought and emotion, society and culture to affect not only our
phenomenological experience but our very neurobiological structure and
function. In sharp contrast to genetic determinism, this new paradigm
envisions individuals as having the innate potential for agency over the
tripartite dimensionality of their biopsychosocial selves.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="tsec sec" id="S11">
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<h3 class="head no_bottom_margin ui-helper-clearfix" id="S11title">
<span style="font-size: large;">Implications for Social Work</span></h3>
<div class="p p-first" id="P29">
The
social work profession's historical emphasis on the social environment
as the context for individual well-being is supported by research over
the past decade. Neuroplasticity and psychosocial genomic research
indicate that socioenvironmental forces have the potency to alter human
well-being through their effects on neurobiology. Social experience may
be transduced through the activation of neurons, leading to
modifications in the phenotypic expression of genes and eventuating in
structural changes to the brain. While genes and neurobiology may be the
substrates of vulnerability to environmental stressors, they are also,
in all likelihood, the substrates of resilience (<a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R5" role="button">D Cicchetti, 2003</a>; <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R6" id="__tag_195842112" role="button">D. Cicchetti & Blender, 2006</a>).</div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P29">
<br /></div>
<div id="P30">
The
sciences of neuroplasticity and psychosocial genomics may provide new
empirical bases for social work interventions. Biological measures of
change can and should be used to enhance the evaluation of social
intervention research. Given the current funding climate and priorities
of the National Institutes of Health, research programs designed to
evaluate social work practice might be more likely to obtain grant
support if interventions studied were evaluated with physiological
outcome measures including those assessing gene expression and
neuroplasticity. In time, a given practice may be deemed
“evidence-based” when, among other criteria, it is shown to result in
plastic brain changes or altered gene expression associated with
improved biopsychosocial functioning.</div>
<div id="P30">
<br /></div>
<div id="P31">
Currently, there is
a paucity of empirical support for this new paradigm in studies with
humans. An abundance of research on higher mammals indicates that
experience can trigger gene expression leading to neuroplasticity. As
referenced earlier in this paper, several studies on humans indicate
that learning and training led to neurogenesis and the reorganization of
neural networks. Despite developments in these lines of research,
science has only begun to examine the effects of psychosocial
interventions on brain structure and function. More research must be
conducted in this emerging field, and the social work profession, with
its expertise in addressing social problems and enhancing human
well-being, can make a vital contribution to this endeavor.</div>
<div id="P31">
<br /></div>
<div id="P32">
Brain
imaging and gene assays may be utilized to detect the neuroplastic and
genomic effects of psychosocial interventions. Technologies such as
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), functional magnetic resonance imaging
(fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) are capable of assessing
the neurophysiological changes associated with psychosocial
interventions (<a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R28" role="button">Kumari, 2006</a>).
Reductions in psychiatric symptoms may be reflected in the alterations
in brain metabolism and structure revealed by these imaging
technologies. DNA microarray technologies, which can evaluate messenger
RNA production in cells and thereby determine which genes are activated (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R37" id="__tag_195842128" role="button">Mirnics, Middleton, Lewis, & Levitt, 2001</a>; <a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R47" id="__tag_195842107" role="button">Raychaudhuri, Sutphin, Chang, & Altman, 2001</a>), have been used to assess alterations in gene expression related to post-traumatic stress disorder (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R53" id="__tag_195842099" role="button">Segman et al., 2005</a>), social aggression (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R2" id="__tag_195842100" role="button">Berton et al., 2006</a>), and depression (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R17" id="__tag_195842121" role="button">Evans et al., 2004</a>).
DNA microarrays may become more widely used to measure biological
effects of psychosocial interventions in the not-too-distant future (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R51" id="__tag_195842103" role="button">E. L. Rossi, 2005</a>).</div>
<div id="P32">
<br /></div>
<div id="P33">
Nevertheless,
the funding and specialized training necessary to perform brain imaging
and DNA microarrays decreases the likelihood that social work
researchers working in isolation could leverage these technologies for
biopsychosocial research. Consequently, future psychosocial intervention
research could involve interdisciplinary teams of social workers,
neuroscientists, and molecular biologists, where data from the
biological sciences could be complemented by the insights of social work
research. Alternatively, other more accessible biological markers, such
as stress hormone levels in saliva, could be measured as a proxy for
physiological change induced by psychosocial interventions. For example,
salivary cortisol assays are a relatively inexpensive form of
assessment that can be done by many university laboratories. Social work
investigators could add this measure to their intervention research
protocols.</div>
<div id="P33">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-last" id="P34">
Whether the impact of
psychosocial interventions can be traced at the neuronal, genomic, or
grosser levels of physiological response, biological markers will only
be meaningful as a complement to self-report and collateral measures of
change. Indeed, Engel's biopsychosocial paradigm is rooted in the
philosophical principle of complementarity (<a class="bibr popnode tag_hotlink tag_tooltip jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R20" id="__tag_195842097" role="button">Freedman, 1995</a>);
instead of the “either/or” mentality of dualistic reductionism,
biopsychosocial research should embrace a “both/and” logic, where
reports of subjective experience garnered through validated instruments
and qualitative interviews are correlated with biological and behavioral
data. Such research can add value to Social Work as a primary mental
health and allied-health profession and lead to the implementation of
interventions with demonstrable physiological, psychological, and
behavioral benefits.</div>
<div class="p p-last" id="P34">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="tsec sec" id="S12">
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<h3 class="head no_bottom_margin ui-helper-clearfix" id="S12title">
<span style="font-size: large;">Conclusion</span></h3>
<div class="p p-first" id="P35">
Over
the past decade neuroplasticity research has enriched the
biopsychosocial perspective by demonstrating that psychosocial
experiences not only influence neurobiological processes but may
actually change the structure of the adult brain. These structural
changes consist of increased arborization of neurons, enhanced synaptic
connectivity, and even the genesis of new neural tissue. Although
neuroplasticity research is in its infancy, recent findings suggest that
the effects of psychosocial experiences such learning and mental
training on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functions may be
mediated by alterations to the architecture of the brain.</div>
<div class="p p-first" id="P35">
<br /></div>
<div id="P36">
In
turn, experience-dependent modifications to neural tissue may be driven
by epigenetic processes (i.e., changes in gene expression produced by
environmental determinants). The human environment is constantly
conditioned by social experiences, which, when transduced by the nervous
system into electrochemical signals, may modulate protein synthesis in
the nuclei of nerve cells, ultimately leading to changes in the
replication and growth of neurons. Social experience can change gene
expression, leading to the restructuring of the brain through
neuroplasticity. While tentative at present, empirical investigations of
the psychosocial genomic hypothesis will likely proliferate over the
next decade.</div>
<div id="P36">
<br /></div>
<div id="P37">
These new biopsychosocial sciences are
consistent with a view of human beings as holistic, recursive systems
structurally coupled with their environments in a process of mutual
change (<a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R34" role="button">Maturana & Varela, 1987</a>).
Intentionality and volition can generate changes in the structure of
the brain, the very organ assumed to produce such mental phenomena (<a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R52" role="button">Schwartz & Begley, 2002</a>).
With this finding it is evident that human experience is not driven
solely from the bottom-up by neurobiology and genetics. Instead, there
is growing evidence that psychosocial experience can exert a
macrodeterministic, top-down force upon our biology. In the philosophy
of emergent interactionism, Roger Sperry, Nobel laureate neuroscientist,
described macrodeterminism as a higher-order, molar level of
organization that determines and conditions the activity of lower-order,
nested sub-components (<a class="bibr popnode jig-ncbipopper" href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2933650/#R56" role="button">Sperry, 1987</a>).
Hence, human beings, who are at one level assemblies of organ systems
comprised of aggregates of cells, in turn composed of organic molecules
made up of sub-atomic particles, are not merely the summation of these
physical elements. Instead, the consciousness that emerges from the
interaction of these components can act back upon its physical
substrate. Thought, emotion, and action trigger neural activity, which
can lead to a re-organization of the brain, shaping future psychosocial
experience. From this perspective, we are not the passive products of
neurophysiology and heredity; rather, through our behavior in the social
environment, we become active agents in the construction of our own
neurobiology, and ultimately, our own lives.</div>
<div id="P37">
<br /></div>
<div class="p p-last" id="P38">
This
new paradigm may reveal the empirical foundation of that most central
of social work principles, the idea that people have the power to
transcend and transform their limitations into opportunities for growth
and well-being.</div>
<div class="p p-last" id="P38">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="tsec sec" id="S13">
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<h3 class="head no_bottom_margin ui-helper-clearfix" id="S13title">
<span style="font-size: large;">Acknowledgments</span></h3>
<div class="sec">
<div id="__p1">
ELG was supported by Grant Number T32AT003378 from the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.</div>
<div id="__p1">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-23309132882466926572014-02-28T06:42:00.000-08:002014-02-28T06:42:37.706-08:00Why People Behave in Self-Defeating, Irrational Ways and How to Really Change<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Our brains are simply not set up to produce rational behavior. But there's a way to change that. </span></h3>
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<em><span class="field field-name-field-date field-type-date field-label-hidden"><span class="field-items"><span class="field-item even"><span class="date-display-single" content="2014-02-27T12:23:00-08:00">February 27, 2014</span></span></span></span>
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<strong><em>The following story first appeared in <a href="https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/magazine/currentissue/item/2406-the-great-deception">Psychotherapy Networker.</a> For more great content, <a href="https://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/">read their current issue. </a></em></strong></div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
At
the tail end of a sweltering, humid Chicago day in 1993, I took my
family to the community pool for a dip. As the children splashed
gleefully, I sat nearby reading Robert Ornstein’s new book, <em>The Evolution of Consciousness</em>, unaware that my life was about to change.</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
Seven
years earlier, I’d emerged from my doctoral studies utterly
dissatisfied with existing answers to the question of why people
continue to behave in self-defeating, irrational ways despite clear
evidence that their methods aren’t working. Few questions were more
important to the enterprise of psychotherapy, yet the answers at that
time were highly speculative—running the gamut from unresolved childhood
issues to low ego strength to family homeostasis to secondary payoffs,
with little scientific evidence to support any of them. Deeply
discouraged, I wondered if I’d chosen the wrong career.</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
From
the first page of Ornstein’s book, it was clear to me that he was on to
something new. Using hard neuroscience data, he proposed that we behave
irrationally because our brains are simply not set up to produce
rational behavior. Throughout history, he argued, we’ve been operating
under a great deception—we tend to believe that our thoughts and actions
result largely from our conscious intentions. In fact, while our
rational mind has a degree of veto power, the inclinations that fuel our
perceptions, interpretations, and actions primarily come from neural
processes that operate beneath the level of awareness. The fact that
most of us have fallen for the great deception isn’t our fault. Because
we’re aware only of our conscious thoughts, we readily assume that
they’re the prime movers in our brains. We’re a bit like the men in the
movie <em>My Big Fat Greek Wedding</em>, who think that because they
consider themselves the “head of the house,” they’re in charge. But
remember Maria’s famous quote? “The man is the head, but the woman is
the neck. And she can turn the head any way she wants.” In the brain,
nonconscious urges and impulses are the neck, and conscious thought is
merely the head.</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
To
support this idea, Ornstein cited the work of Benjamin Libet, the
University of California San Francisco researcher who found that by
monitoring brain activity, he could tell when subjects were going to
initiate simple wrist-flicking movements <em>before</em> the subjects
were aware of deciding to flick their wrists. Libet’s findings ran
contrary to the way most of us experience ourselves. Most of us think,
“When I move, it’s because I decided that I was going to move.” But
Libet’s studies showed that impulse and inclination <em>preceded</em> conscious
intention. It was as though somebody else in the subject’s brain
decided when he or she would flick his or her wrist. Initially, Libet’s
study stirred a storm of controversy, but over the next few decades, his
findings would be replicated time and time again, with more and more
sophisticated technologies, leading to him winning a Nobel Prize for his
contributions.</div>
<div id="bookmark" style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
The sun was setting by the time I reached the end of <em>The Evolution of Consciousness</em>.
I hauled the kids out of the pool and herded them into the car. On the
drive home, I remember thinking that if Ornstein were right, I’d need to
rethink my assumptions about nearly everything concerning human
behavior, including psychotherapy. For me, reading his work was a
genuine eureka moment. But figuring out a way to actually use this new
brain knowledge with my clients would turn out to be tough, painstaking
work. Still, I decided that I was up for the challenge—if my clients
were.</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
<strong>The Knee-Jerk Brain</strong></div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
Investigating
the studies cited in Ornstein’s book soon plunged me into the work of
other pioneering researchers in the as-yet-unnamed field of affective
neuroscience. Researcher Antonio Damasio’s work played a key role in
furthering my understanding of the power of automatic processes in the
brain. Damasio studied the brains of people who’d suffered a unique kind
of brain damage that had left their cognitive abilities intact,
impeding only their ability to experience emotions normally. Despite
testing that confirmed that all the building blocks of rationality were
in place, these people couldn’t make effective real-life decisions. At
first, Damasio was puzzled. Why would impairment in the emotional brain
interfere with practical decision-making? He eventually realized that
the emotional brain plays a crucial role in the machinery of
rationality: the brain generates quick, gut-level emotional reactions
that collectively serve as a guidance system for reasoning.</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
Until
reading Damasio’s studies, I’d assumed that successful people were
effective because they resisted the pull of their emotions of the moment
and used reasoning to guide their actions. Damasio’s studies powerfully
challenged this notion, suggesting that disciplined people are every
bit as much influenced by emotional impulse and inclination as
undisciplined people are. The difference is that their impulses are more
balanced.</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
This
was a revolutionary concept for me. I’d never considered the
possibility that disciplined people took too much credit for their
efforts. According to Damasio, a disciplined person was simply someone
whose nervous system naturally generated a wider range of gut-level
emotion reactions than an undisciplined person. Whereas undisciplined
people are influenced primarily by the gut feelings they experience in
the present moment (e.g., wanting to blow off a homework assignment and
watch a movie), disciplined people are equally influenced by good and
bad feelings generated while remembering the past (e.g., feeling bad
remembering the grade reduction resulting from missing an assignment) or
envisioning the future (e.g., feeling good in anticipation of a job
completed).</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
Gradually,
I began to accept the concept that conscious understanding and effort
weren’t the mighty forces that I’d assumed they were and that automatic
urges and inclinations were much stronger than I’d ever imagined. In
fact, confirming evidence seemed to pop up everywhere. In my therapy
practice, I began to notice the wide range of my clients’ natural
inclinations. I saw some people naturally plunge into rumination
whenever they got upset, while others let go and refocused with relative
ease. Some naturally experienced an abundance of feelings of warmth,
tenderness, and playfulness, while others rarely had these feelings—even
when life was going pretty well. Some intensely felt a measure of what
others were feeling, while others could only infer what people were
feeling from their words and actions. The list went on.</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
Just
as the Cookie Monster couldn’t decide one day that he liked broccoli
more than Oreos, the apparently automatic reactions that determined how
people behaved in these areas seemingly couldn’t be changed at will.
Such behaviors appear so deeply ingrained that they seem to be part of
our second nature. Nevertheless, they wield tremendous influence on the
quality of our lives. People who tend toward knee-jerk defensiveness
don’t function as well as those who respond less defensively: they’re
impervious to corrective feedback, and their partners regularly feel
dismissed. Likewise, people who don’t feel much affection toward others
seem to have more trouble forming close relationships than people who
experience loving feelings freely.</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
Up
to this point, most of my therapeutic efforts had been focused on
helping clients develop better understandings of their lives and, as a
result, make better choices. I’d wanted to help them live more
consciously, but my confidence in the effectiveness of awareness and
effort was waning. With my new understanding of the brain, I knew
gut-level inclinations were more likely to sit in the driver’s seat, and
the most that our conscious, willful selves could do was to try to
influence these inclinations from the back seat, unless—and this was a
big unless—there was a way to retrain the emotional brain.</div>
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<strong>Focused Practice</strong></div>
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One
of my first experiments in trying to help a client engage in emotional
reconditioning involved Steve, whose wife, Debra, had attended a few
sessions and then dropped out of therapy. Steve continued on his own,
recognizing that many of his relationship habits were dysfunctional.
During previous conjoint sessions, I’d noticed that whenever Debra had
voiced a complaint, Steve had predictably become upset and defensive. I
knew that Steve would need some way to practice thinking differently at
the moments when he was actually upset. So I suggested that he ask Debra
if she’d record complaints on a cassette tape, which he could then use
to practice being nondefensive. Surprised and intrigued, Debra agreed.</div>
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I
sent Debra a message asking her to make short 15- to 45-second
recordings whenever she felt upset with Steve—the more recordings, the
better. After she’d made a week’s worth of recordings, she was to give
the tape to Steve to bring to our next therapy session. During our next
several sessions, Steve and I listened to Debra’s recordings together,
and I helped Steve pay attention to his automatic reactions when
listening to her critical tone. Without feeling the immediate pressure
to respond to Debra, he came to recognize that when he felt criticized,
his face typically flushed, his features scrunched into a scowl, and his
hands tingled slightly. He also noticed that predictable thoughts
popped up—such as <em>She’s so controlling!</em>—and that he always felt an immediate urge to dispute every possible detail of her complaint.</div>
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Together,
Steve and I developed a practice plan that involved relaxing physically
as he listened to her complaints, slowing his breathing down, reminding
himself that he could afford to take his time and hear her out,
maintaining eye contact without scowling, and then searching for and
commenting on understandable aspects of her complaint. For several weeks
in our therapy sessions, Steve practiced this sequence while listening
to complaint after complaint. Then one day, he came to our session with a
grin on his face, exclaiming, “I think this is beginning to work!”</div>
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A
few days before, Debra had become upset with him when she’d learned
that he’d forgotten to tell his parents that they needed to cancel their
plans to get together. “You know what?” Steve said excitedly. “When she
was yelling at me, I actually noticed that my breathing was slowing
down, and I was really listening to her. I had the urge to justify why I
didn’t make the call, but I remembered that I could do that later if I
needed to and that I could take my time and hear her out.” Instead of
offering an excuse, Steve told her that he should have made calling his
mother a higher priority. “You should have seen the look on her face!”
Steve beamed. The fact that Steve’s automatic reactions had begun to
change after only a few weeks of focused practice made me believe that I
was on the right track.</div>
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<strong>The Wages of Blame</strong></div>
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Soon
enough, however, I realized that the reconditioning exercises worked so
well for Steve because he was highly self-responsible and motivated to
change, while most of the people I saw in therapy didn’t think they
needed to change—at least not nearly as much as they thought their
partners needed to. Motivating partners to take personal responsibility
was the most frustrating part of being a couple’s therapist for me.
Every time I challenged partners to behave differently, they’d counter
with some version of “Well, I wouldn’t be acting this way if my partner
wasn’t so selfish (or insensitive, irresponsible, inattentive, immature,
misguided, unrealistic, irrational, short-sighted, or biased.)”</div>
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They
usually had a point. Their partners often behaved just as badly as they
themselves did, but to them, it seemed that their partners’ actions
were far more egregious. Before I could do anything even approaching
“brain retraining” with such clients, I needed a way to help them see
their negative habits and understand the role that these habits were
playing in the deterioration of their relationships.</div>
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I
honestly don’t know if I’d have succeeded in motivating these clients
had it not been for the fact that I’d already read John Gottman’s book <em>Why Do Marriages Succeed or Fail?</em>,
in which he reports on his research finding that the most effective
partners in intimate relationships were able to avoid “negative affect
reciprocity” (the tendency to respond to negativity with more
negativity) and the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” (criticism,
contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling) when they felt provoked.
Additionally, Gottman found that it was <em>especially</em> when
partners were behaving badly that the differences between couples who
were destined for satisfying relationships could be most clearly
distinguished from couples who were destined for serious trouble.</div>
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Gottman’s
research enabled me to cut through the blame game that so often plagues
ailing partners and help them—at least some of them—understand that the
ability to respond effectively when they didn’t like their partner’s
actions was a nonnegotiable requirement if they wanted their
relationships to thrive. Gottman’s research was also valuable because of
its precision. He’d zeroed in on the specific habits that were required
for relationships to succeed, which helped clients identify exactly
where they tended to get off track in their relationships. However,
while most Gottman-influenced therapists I talked to were trying to
teach clients these skills, I knew that clients wouldn’t be able to
conjure these skills at a moment’s notice as long as their automatic
emotional reactions kept getting in the way. To successfully implement
these skills, clients would first need to rewire some of their automatic
reactions.</div>
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<strong>The Brain on Mindfulness</strong></div>
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For
almost 20 years now, I’ve been exploring methods for helping clients
develop new, automatic inclinations that allow better self-regulation,
self-attunement, perspective-taking, and empathy, especially in their
intimate relationships. But one of the studies with the biggest impact
on my approach was published in <em>NeuroReport</em> by a team of
researchers from Harvard and Yale who’d found that mindfulness
meditation may produce growth in brain areas known to be involved in
mood regulation, attentiveness, and empathy.</div>
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As
it turned out, this study was just the first of its kind. Since then,
18 additional studies have been published finding that meditators have
significantly greater volume in areas of the brain that produce
automatic tendencies relevant to social functioning, including several
that found that periods as short as eight weeks of regular mindfulness
created predictable changes in the brain. In fact, in 2013, a team of
researchers from Brazil and the United Kingdom found that they could
distinguish the brains of experienced meditators from those of
non-meditators with 94.9 percent accuracy. The evidence is
clear—meditation conditions the brain to produce <em>automatic</em> inclinations
that help people be more attentive and optimistic and less affected by
stressful circumstances and anxiety. In other words, the nervous system
changes promoted by mindfulness can serve as a stable platform that
enables people to act more skillfully in all areas of their lives.</div>
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<strong>Using Brain Science for Behavioral Change</strong></div>
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Over
the years, I’ve come to recognize that there’s no one-shot,
magic-bullet approach to retraining the human brain. Instead, I’ve
developed a process that systematically combines what we know about the
power of the emotional brain, the particular strengths of the rational
mind, the mechanics of mindfulness meditation, and the brain’s
impressive flexibility to help clients learn to calm their nervous
systems and navigate their lives more effectively. This process
includes:</div>
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<li><em><strong>Conscious pursuit of understanding and change.</strong></em> We
need to use our conscious minds to understand our lives, develop ideas
about what’s healthy and unhealthy, and pursue concrete changes that
move us toward health and well-being.</li>
<li><em><strong>Stress reduction and rejuvenation.</strong></em> We need to develop nervous system inclinations that reduce stress, relax the mind, and rejuvenate the body.</li>
<li><em><strong>Distress tolerance and self-regulation.</strong></em> We
need to develop nervous system inclinations that help us tolerate the
inevitable stress that accompanies making difficult changes and
self-regulate in emotionally charged situations.</li>
<li><em><strong>Emotional accessibility.</strong></em> We need to develop nervous system inclinations that produce feelings that connect us to others.</li>
</ol>
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At our treatment center for couples, my colleagues and I begin <em>stress reduction and rejuvenation</em> in
the first week of therapy, asking partners to start mindfulness classes
in conjunction with therapy. While mindfulness training alone won’t
heal broken relationships, we consider it an indispensable part of the
relationship improvement process. Years of experience have taught us
that there’s only so much that we can do with clients whose default
nervous system impulses and inclinations keep them perpetually stressed,
edgy, and preoccupied.</div>
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While
partners engage in their first eight weeks of mindfulness classes, we
use therapy sessions to engage them in the conscious pursuit of
understanding and change. Specifically, we help them (1) become aware of
studies suggesting that people who believe their partners are “the main
problem” are usually mistaken, (2) consider evidence suggesting that
this mistake is of no small consequence to relationships, (3) become
receptive to our opinion that their habits have been as damaging to the
relationship as their partner’s habits, (4) listen with an open mind as
we paint a clear picture of their problematic habits, (5) understand why
it’s in their own best interest to explicitly acknowledge and accept
responsibility for their roles in the deterioration of their
relationships, and (6) become determined to develop the full set of
habits that are characteristic of people who know how to get their
partners to treat them well. We also help partners accept mutual
responsibility while in the presence of each other. Then we move on to
identify the underlying needs, worries, fears, and insecurities that are
beneath their previous blaming and defensive postures, and we help them
talk about these vulnerable feelings without accusation or blame.</div>
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The combination of <em>stress reduction and rejuvenation</em> (facilitated through mindfulness classes) and<em>conscious pursuit of understanding and change</em> (during
therapy sessions) is powerful, and couples often make significant
strides in the first two months of therapy. But in my experience, that’s
rarely enough. Up to this point, the shifts that clients make during
sessions are heavily therapist dependent.<em>We</em> help partners self-regulate during sessions. <em>We</em> create
the conditions that enable them to connect with vulnerable feelings.
The biggest challenge for them is still ahead: learning to rewire their
brains to produce automatic inclinations that enable them to do these
things on their own. This is hard, gutsy work, but it can produce
substantial change, so we help clients walk the arduous path toward
self-regulation through exercises in <em>distress tolerance and self-soothing</em> and in <em>emotional accessibility</em>.</div>
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<strong>Developing Calm in the Storm</strong></div>
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Neuroscientist
and psychiatrist Daniel Siegel notes that the process of turning toward
and soothing upset feelings (rather than focusing exclusively on the
external threats) is what good parents do in responding to feelings of
distress in their children. Before helping children solve their
problems, skillful parents relax, turn toward and welcome their
children’s feelings while providing direct physical soothing—often
through hugging, holding, and other forms of nurturing contact.
Similarly, <em>distress tolerance and self-soothing</em> exercises help
clients turn toward their own upset feelings and engage directly in
physiological soothing, temporarily postponing thoughts about problems.
This process of self-accompaniment elicits a sense of calm in the storm,
allowing clients to avoid alarm or panic when things aren’t going well.</div>
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We
begin by asking clients to notice when small annoyances or
disappointments occur in the course of each day. When they notice these
frustrations, clients stop what they’re doing and spend one to three
minutes resisting the urge to analyze their upsetting circumstances.
Instead, they’re encouraged to slow down their breathing and focus
attention on their physical sensations.</div>
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We’ve found that the key to reconditioning automatic reactions involves <em>frequent</em> reconditioning exercises that are practiced in <em>close proximity</em> to
each other. The brain will acquire a new habit more quickly if a person
practices the new habit once a day for 14 days than if a person
practices it one time per week for 14 weeks. I learned this concept
decades ago from Albert, the white lab rat I worked with in my college
experimental psychology class. Albert learned new behaviors, like
running to a specific area of his cage, with fewer conditioning trials
when he was rewarded for desired behavior once per hour than when he was
rewarded for it once per week. This is why we ask partners to practice
with every upset feeling—no matter how small—that they experience on a
daily basis. We emphasize that most of the work involves simply
remembering to do the exercises and being willing to interrupt whatever
they’re doing for a couple of minutes. If practiced faithfully, these
small moments will change their brains within weeks. We want clients to
understand that each day that goes by without practicing <em>distress tolerance and self-soothing</em> decreases the likelihood that their brains will begin to produce calming instincts and inclinations automatically.</div>
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Clients
begin by practicing with mild upset feelings. Once they’ve worked with
mild upset feelings every day for at least a week, they move on to more
intense feelings. For this level of practice, we want the upset feelings
to be stronger, but not so difficult that clients get hijacked by them
and are unable to practice. One method involves having clients listen to
complaints that their partners have prerecorded, as I had Steve do with
Debra’s complaints in the days of tape recorders. (Now we have the
added convenience of making recordings on our smartphones.) Some clients
don’t need to listen to recordings to activate upset feelings. They can
feel upset just by setting aside times to regularly remember recent
upsetting events. To many people this sounds crazy. “Why would I want to
deliberately make myself upset?” they balk. The answer is so they can
practice calming themselves frequently enough to wire their brains with
an instinct to remain calm during upsetting situations.</div>
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Although
the point of triggering is to learn how to calm oneself and eventually
not get triggered in the first place, it’s undeniably painful work. When
clients lose their nerve I empathize with them, readily acknowledging
that there have been weeks, months, and even whole phases in my life
when I just haven’t had the energy or motivation to engage in practices
that would’ve been good for me. Sometimes life is like that; you just
can’t sustain the courage or motivation to press on, and it’s wise to
cut yourself some slack. I support clients who need to back off, but I
don’t want them to delude themselves. Even as they’re backing off, I
encourage them to consider that at some point, they’ll probably need to
find the motivation to engage in difficult practices such as these if
they want their habitual reactions to change.</div>
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Intense
upset feelings during actual arguments are the most difficult for
clients to practice with; however, clients who have practiced diligently
with mild and moderate feelings can usually soothe intense feelings as
well. First, we familiarize them with the process of working with
intense feelings in advance, when they’re calm and can fully take in
each element of practice. Then during conjoint sessions, we ask them to
discuss hot issues, the ones that trigger strong feelings. Ahead of
time, clients agree that when they’re triggered, they’ll take session
breaks for the purpose of practicing<em>distress tolerance and self-soothing</em>, and I give them the set of instructions in the box on the next page to help them through each of the steps.</div>
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Once
partners have gone through the steps described in the box to the right,
they resume the session and continue discussing the troubling issue.
Sometimes another break is needed, and often there isn’t time for issues
to get resolved by the end of sessions. To feel okay about this lack of
resolution, clients must care more about acquiring the ability to
self-soothe and tolerate distress than they do about resolving issues
quickly. They must believe that ultimately, the ability to react less
intensely and operate with less desperation will lead to easier
resolution of differences—and this benefit will extend over time
throughout their relationship. They must be willing to exchange the
value of quick resolution for the long-term benefits that will come from
investing time in reconditioning their brains for calmer reactions in
upsetting situations.</div>
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After
they’ve had success on their own during session breaks, we ask clients
to begin practicing at home by taking breaks during real-time arguments.
When people have difficulty engaging in <em>distress tolerance and self-soothing</em> exercises
at home during arguments, it’s usually because they’re not fully
committed to getting better at them. Deep down, they may not believe
that calming themselves will matter much. They may feel that they’ve
been calm during arguments in the past and it hasn’t made any
difference; their partners were still unresponsive. I agree with such
clients, acknowledging that staying calm by itself won’t be enough—they
may also need to stand up for themselves. To heighten motivation for
these clients, we spend quite a bit of time discussing studies showing
that the ability to calm oneself in the face of conflict is highly
correlated with getting satisfying responses from one’s partner. We then
ask clients to complete logs in which they record each upsetting
incident, how much time they spent trying to shut down mental chatter
and focus on physical self-soothing, and how much calmer they felt after
practicing. The good news is that for clients who practice diligently
with the full range of mild, moderate, and intense feelings, changes
take place in their nervous systems within a period of weeks.</div>
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<strong>The Power of Mental Rehearsal</strong></div>
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As
partners become better able to self-regulate and resolve differences
respectfully, feelings of warmth, interest, fondness, playfulness,
sexual interest, and other forms of loving attention often increase
spontaneously. However, this doesn’t always happen. Years of animosity
and indifference often shut down the neural systems that generate such
feelings. In his 30 years of studying the neural systems that create
social bonds, neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp identified four special
operating systems in the brain, which, when active, automatically
produce feelings that bring people closer together. One creates a
longing for emotional closeness and contact, a second produces feelings
of tenderness and the urge to care for others, a third produces the
urges for spontaneous and playful social contact, and a fourth activates
sexual desire. Any of these systems can go dormant when stressful life
circumstances occur. But some individuals, even before experiencing the
relationship distress that drove them into therapy, never had an
abundance of easy access to some or all of these intimacy-generating
neural systems. Is this emotional coolness a fixed state, or can it
change? A number of studies in the past decade suggest that, just as our
nervous systems can be groomed for better self-regulation, these neural
systems can be primed to enable a natural emergence of feelings of
connection. We help clients do this through specific, focused mental
practices that we call<em>emotional accessibility</em> exercises.</div>
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Coaches
and trainers have long utilized focused mental exercises to help
athletes enhance performance by visualizing goals and concentrating on
steps toward goals, but only recently have we discovered just how
powerfully mental exercises can change the brain. In a Harvard study
conducted by neurologist Alvaro Pascual-Leone, subjects who’d never
played the piano before were given instructions and asked to practice a
piece for five days, two hours per day, for a total of 10 hours. Before
and after these practice stints, their brains were scanned. As
anticipated, subjects showed brain changes in the areas of the motor
cortex that corresponded to the physical movements that they’d
practiced.</div>
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Another
group of subjects randomly assigned to a second practice condition did
the same thing as the first group, with one crucial exception: they
never pressed the keys of the piano. Instead, they mentally focused on
each of the practice movements. Researchers were amazed to find that
these mental-rehearsal-only subjects evidenced almost the same changes
in their brains as the subjects who’d practiced using their hands. In
other words, mental practice produced changes in the motor cortex even
though subjects hadn’t moved their fingers—they just visualized moving
their fingers.</div>
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But how did the purely mental rehearsal, with its accompanying brain changes, affect the subjects’ ability to <em>play</em> the
piece? Here, the results were stunning. Although the people in the
mental-rehearsal-only group had never practiced physically, they could
play the rehearsed piano piece almost as well as the group who’d
practiced physically for five days. And after only one day of physical
practice, they could play just as well as them.</div>
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The
Harvard piano studies aren’t the only ones that show brain and
performance-level changes in response to mental rehearsal. A study at
the Cleveland Clinic found that subjects could increase their finger
strength 53 percent through physical exercises over a 12-week period,
but amazingly, a second group showed a 35 percent strength increase
through mental visualization only. In a 2007 study conducted at Bishop’s
University in Quebec, college athletes who engaged in hip flexor
exercises increased their muscle strength 28 percent, while a
mental-rehearsal-only group strengthened the same hip flexor muscles by
24 percent.</div>
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Can
feelings, too, be changed through mental exercise? The answer appears
to be yes. Over the past decade, dozens of studies have been published
on a particular form of mental rehearsal known as compassion meditation.
The exercise involves spending extended periods of time focusing on the
intent and desire to develop feelings of compassion and loving-kindness
for others. Just as mental rehearsal promoted changes in the motor
cortex of Pascual-Leone’s piano players, brain scans have revealed that
brain circuits involved in empathy, positive emotion, and emotional
regulation are dramatically changed in subjects who’d extensively
practiced compassion meditation.</div>
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A 2013 study from a University of Wisconsin research team, published in <em>Psychological Science</em>,
showed that focusing daily on the intention to be loving and
compassionate not only strengthened feelings of compassion and related
neural underpinnings, but also increased the concrete altruistic
behavior of subjects. A 2013 study from Emory University published in <em>Social, Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience</em> found
that compassion meditation boosted something called “empathic
accuracy,” a person’s ability to read the facial expressions of others.
In this study, the meditators, in comparison to those in the control
group, showed significant increases in neural activity in areas of the
brain important for empathy, and these brain changes accounted for
changes in the participants’ empathic accuracy scores.</div>
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These
studies suggest that simply dwelling on the intention to develop a
specific feeling activates the neural circuits responsible for producing
that feeling. In focusing on the intention to be compassionate,
meditators primed their brains for compassion. It’s reasonable to assume
that the same principle applies to other feelings. Thus, if you spend
five minutes a day thinking about things you’re grateful for, you’re
likely to energize and create more connection with brain circuits that
produce feelings of gratitude. If you spend five minutes a day
remembering vividly times when you felt happy (or playful, affectionate,
sexual, and so forth), you’ll energize and strengthen brain circuits
that can produce these feelings. As neuroscientists explain, anything
you consistently give attention to teaches the brain to produce more of
it, and this is true with negative thoughts.</div>
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At
our clinic, we ask partners to spend five minutes each day doing
nothing but thinking about things they like about their mates and about
good moments that they’ve spent together. The primary value of this <em>emotional accessibility</em> exercise
is that each time partners dwell on the good feelings they have toward
each other, the neural circuits that generate feelings of
connection—such as the middle insula, superior parietal lobule, right
periaqueductal gray, left ventral tegmental area, and left rostro-dorsal
anterior cingulate cortex—may be strengthened.</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
However,
studies on mental rehearsal and compassion meditation suggest that it’s
not just any kind of attention that produces these significant changes.
Once again, regular, sustained work is essential. The subjects in
Pascual-Leone’s piano study didn’t just wish occasionally for increased
piano skills; they spent hours per day specifically imagining the piano
moves necessary to develop the skills. Similarly, those involved in the
compassion meditation studies didn’t just entertain fleeting thoughts
about wanting to feel more compassion and loving-kindness; they
regularly spent time dwelling on the desire to have more compassion—in
some studies up to 40 minutes per day over the course of eight weeks.
Reflecting on his experience, one of my clients said, “I can’t make a
good feeling walk through the door on command, but if I keep holding the
door open, sooner or later it’ll walk through.”</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
Many
people live out their lives without holding this door open. Generally,
people fail to do this because they believe it’s useless. Early in our
lives, most of us are told, “Wishful thinking won’t get you anywhere!
You need to get off of your butt and make things happen!” While wishful
thinking alone won’t get people where they want to go, people who
bolster their concrete efforts with focused, sustained intentions are
likelier to make desired changes than those who use behavioral efforts
alone. Numerous studies over the past decade have shown that surgeons
who engage in mental and physical practice together are more skillful
than those who engage in physical practice only. Similarly, stroke
victims who engage in mental visualization in addition to physical
therapy recover functioning faster, and athletes and musicians who
combine mental and physical practice perform better.</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
<strong>Doing the Work</strong></div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
When
I think back on that afternoon years ago when Robert Ornstein was first
blowing my mind, I realize that since then almost everything about the
way I conduct therapy has changed. I still help clients develop insight
and make concrete plans for operating more effectively in their daily
lives, but truthfully, this part of my work is more of a sideline. These
days, my central concern is reconditioning the brain. Modern
neuroscientific discoveries suggest that William James was right in 1890
when he proposed that the basic organizer of the human mind is habit,
not rational thought or understanding. Thus, I believe that in the
coming years, the most important developments in mental health will
involve refining technologies for isolating and intervening in automatic
nervous system habits.</div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
Reconditioning
the brain isn’t the stuff of brief therapy. I ask a lot of my clients,
and some weeks I’m better at motivating them than others. Over the
years, I’ve noticed that their willingness to do the work seems to
correlate with what’s going on within me. The calmer my own nervous
system is, the easier it is for me to connect with feelings of love,
nonjudgment, empathy, acceptance, and excitement about the possibilities
that lie ahead for my clients. When clients sense qualities in me that
they’d like to develop in themselves, they’re sold. I can talk about the
scientifically proven benefits of mental practice until I’m blue in the
face, but unless they sense that I know what I’m talking about through
their felt experience of me, they don’t buy in. Good for them. In this
business, there’s no substitute for the real thing.</div>
<div>
<div style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-top: 10px;">
<strong>Distress Tolerance & Self-Soothing:</strong> <em>Guidelines for Clients</em></div>
<ol style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">
<li>Stop what you’re doing and say to yourself:<ul type="disc">
<li>I can afford to slow down and try to relax.</li>
<li>I’ve got some time to figure out how to handle this situation.</li>
<li>I’m not going to just let it go without saying something.</li>
<li>If I can get calmer, I’ll be more powerful.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Now identify the behind-the-scenes facts that are making you feel upset. Write your answers to these questions:<ul type="disc">
<li>What seems to be the sad or disturbing truth about why this person is acting this way?</li>
<li>What
bad thing is happening here that seems similar to a bad situation
that’s happened before? Is the same bad thing happening now?</li>
<li>What will happen if I can’t get this sort of thing to stop happening?</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Propose
to yourself that the answers to these questions may not be as clearcut
as they seem. One by one, go back through each question and say to
yourself: “Maybe things are as they seem, and maybe they aren’t.”</li>
<li>Set
your thinking about these questions and about the upsetting situation
aside for now. Assume a first-things-first attitude: “First I’m going to
get myself into a state of mind where I feel less upset; then I’ll
think things through and figure out what to do.”</li>
<li>Pay attention
exclusively to the physical sensations that go along with your feelings.
Welcome these sensations. Avoid trying to change them. Just accompany
them while “giving them air” through slow breathing. Think of slow
breathing as like putting an oxygen mask on the part of you that feels
upset. Take big inhales and then long, slow exhales.</li>
<li>If thoughts
pop up, acknowledge them. Then without judging yourself, gently bring
your attention back to the physical sensations. Do this as many times as
needed.</li>
<li>Alternate between paying attention to physical
sensations that go along with the feeling and giving mindful attention
to your breath, other body sensations, and your immediate surroundings.
Use any mental images that help you feel more at ease.</li>
<li>If you
can’t seem to stop ruminating about the upsetting circumstances, engage
in an activity that requires your full attention. Later, when you’re
feeling better, go back and give some thought to how you can best
respond to the upsetting circumstances. If you begin feeling upset
again, start at #1 and follow these guidelines one more time.</li>
</ol>
<em style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;">Brent
Atkinson, PhD, is director of postgraduate training at the Couples
Research Institute in Geneva, Illinois, and Professor Emeritus at
Northern Illinois University. He’s the author of </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Intelligence-Couples-Therapy-Relationships/dp/039370386X" style="color: #074986; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Emotional Intelligence in Couples Therapy: Advances from Neurobiology and the Science of Intimate Relationships</a><span style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;"> </span><em style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;">and </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Intelligence-Couples-Therapy-Relationships/dp/039370386X" style="color: #074986; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Developing Habits for Relationship Success</a><span style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;">. </span><em style="color: #60656a; font-family: Arial, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;">Contact: <a href="mailto:atkinson.bja@gmail.com?subject=RE:%20NETWORKER%20Magazine%20%28Jan/Feb%202014%29%20-%20The%20Great%20Deception" style="color: #074986; text-decoration: none;">atkinson.bja@gmail.com</a>.</em></div>
NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-30505048778190907732014-02-28T05:16:00.001-08:002014-02-28T05:16:36.552-08:00Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership<h2>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://hbr.org/">Harvard Business Review</a></span></h2>
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<a href="http://hbr.org/2008/09/social-intelligence-and-the-biology-of-leadership/ar/1" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Social Intelligence and the Biology of Leadership</span></a></h2>
<div id="articleAuthors">
</div>
<div id="articleAuthors">
by
<a class="author" href="http://hbr.org/search/Daniel%20Goleman/0/author">Daniel Goleman</a>
and
<a class="author" href="http://hbr.org/search/Richard%20Boyatzis/0/author">Richard Boyatzis</a>
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</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<br />
In 1998, one of us, Daniel Goleman, published in these pages his
first article on emotional intelligence and
leadership. The response to “What Makes a
Leader?” was enthusiastic. People throughout and beyond
the business community started talking about the vital role
that empathy and self-knowledge play in
effective leadership. The concept of
emotional intelligence continues to occupy a prominent space in the
leadership literature and in everyday coaching
practices. But in the past five years,
research in the emerging field of social
neuroscience—the study of what happens in the brain while people
interact—is beginning to reveal subtle new truths
about what makes a good leader.<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />The salient discovery is that certain things leaders
do—specifically, exhibit empathy and become attuned to
others’ moods—literally affect both their
own brain chemistry and that of their
followers. Indeed, researchers have found that the leader-follower
dynamic is not a case of two (or more)
independent brains reacting consciously or
unconsciously to each other. Rather, the individual minds
become, in a sense, fused into a single system. We believe
that great leaders are those whose behavior
powerfully leverages the system of brain
interconnectedness. We place them on the opposite end of the
neural continuum from people with serious social
disorders, such as autism or Asperger’s
syndrome, that are characterized by
underdevelopment in the areas of the brain associated with social
interactions. If we are correct, it follows that a
potent way of becoming a better leader is
to find authentic contexts in which to learn
the kinds of social behavior that reinforce the brain’s social
circuitry. Leading effectively is, in other words,
less about mastering situations—or even
mastering social skill sets—than about developing a
genuine interest in and talent for fostering positive feelings
in the people whose cooperation and support
you need.<br />
<br />
The notion that effective leadership is about having
powerful social circuits in the brain has
prompted us to extend our concept of
emotional intelligence, which we had grounded in theories of individual
psychology. A more relationship-based
construct for assessing leadership is <span class="bodyitalic">social intelligence</span>,
which we define as a set of interpersonal
competencies built on specific neural circuits (and
related endocrine systems) that inspire others to be
effective.<br />
<br />
The idea that leaders need social skills
is not new, of course. In 1920, Columbia
University psychologist Edward Thorndike pointed out
that “the best mechanic in a factory may fail as a foreman for
lack of social intelligence.” More recently,
our colleague Claudio Fernández-Aráoz found
in an analysis of new C-level executives that
those who had been hired for their self-discipline, drive, and
intellect were sometimes later fired for
lacking basic social skills. In other words,
the people Fernández-Aráoz studied had smarts in spades, but
their inability to get along socially on the job was
professionally self-defeating.<br />
<div class="sidebar">
<span class="sidebar-title">Do Women Have Stronger Social Circuits?</span></div>
<div class="sidebar">
<span class="sidebar-title"> </span> </div>
What’s
new about our definition of social intelligence is its
biological underpinning, which we will explore in the
following pages. Drawing on the work of
neuroscientists, our own research and consulting
endeavors, and the findings of researchers affiliated with the
Consortium for Research on Emotional
Intelligence in Organizations, we will show
you how to translate newly acquired knowledge about mirror
neurons, spindle cells, and oscillators into practical,
socially intelligent behaviors that can
reinforce the neural links between you and
your followers.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="ahead">Followers Mirror Their Leaders—Literally</span></span></h3>
<span class="ahead"> </span> <br />
Perhaps the most stunning recent discovery in behavioral neuroscience is the identification of <span class="bodyitalic">mirror neurons</span>
in widely dispersed areas of the brain.
Italian neuroscientists found them by
accident while monitoring a particular cell in a monkey’s brain that
fired only when the monkey raised its arm. One
day a lab assistant lifted an ice cream cone
to his own mouth and triggered a reaction in
the monkey’s cell. It was the first evidence that the brain is
peppered with neurons that mimic, or mirror,
what another being does. This previously
unknown class of brain cells operates as neural Wi-Fi,
allowing us to navigate our social world. When we consciously
or unconsciously detect someone else’s
emotions through their actions, our mirror
neurons reproduce those emotions. Collectively, these neurons
create an instant sense of shared experience.<br />
Mirror
neurons have particular importance in organizations,
because leaders’ emotions and actions prompt followers to
mirror those feelings and deeds. The effects
of activating neural circuitry in
followers’ brains can be very powerful. In a recent study, our colleague
Marie Dasborough observed two groups: One
received negative performance feedback
accompanied by positive emotional signals—namely, nods and
smiles; the other was given positive feedback that was
delivered critically, with frowns and
narrowed eyes. In subsequent interviews
conducted to compare the emotional states of the two groups, the people
who had received positive feedback
accompanied by negative emotional signals
reported feeling worse about their performance than did the
participants who had received good-natured negative
feedback. In effect, the delivery was more
important than the message itself. And everybody
knows that when people feel better, they perform better. So, if
leaders hope to get the best out of their
people, they should continue to be demanding
but in ways that foster a positive mood in their teams. The
old carrot-and-stick approach alone doesn’t make neural
sense; traditional incentive systems are
simply not enough to get the best
performance from followers.<br />
<br />
Here’s an example of what does work.
It turns out that there’s a subset of mirror
neurons whose only job is to detect other people’s
smiles and laughter, prompting smiles and laughter in return. A
boss who is self-controlled and humorless
will rarely engage those neurons in his team
members, but a boss who laughs and sets an easygoing tone puts
those neurons to work, triggering spontaneous
laughter and knitting his team together in
the process. A bonded group is one that performs well,
as our colleague Fabio Sala has shown in his research. He
found that top-performing leaders elicited
laughter from their subordinates three times
as often, on average, as did midperforming leaders. Being in a
good mood, other research finds, helps people take
in information effectively and respond
nimbly and creatively. In other words, laughter
is serious business.<br />
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It certainly made a difference at one university-based hospital
in Boston. Two doctors we’ll call Dr. Burke and
Dr. Humboldt were in contention for the
post of CEO of the corporation that ran this hospital
and others. Both of them headed up departments, were superb
physicians, and had published many widely
cited research articles in prestigious
medical journals. But the two had very different personalities. Burke
was intense, task focused, and impersonal. He
was a relentless perfectionist with a
combative tone that kept his staff continually on
edge. Humboldt was no less demanding, but he was very
approachable, even playful, in relating to
staff, colleagues, and patients. Observers noted
that people smiled and teased one another—and even spoke their
minds—more in Humboldt’s department than in
Burke’s. Prized talent often ended up
leaving Burke’s department; in contrast, outstanding folks
gravitated to Humboldt’s warmer working climate.
Recognizing Humboldt’s socially intelligent
leadership style, the hospital corporation’s board
picked him as the new CEO.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="ahead">The “Finely Attuned” Leader</span></span></h3>
<span class="ahead"> </span> <br />
Great
executives often talk about leading from the gut. Indeed,
having good instincts is widely recognized as an
advantage for a leader in any context,
whether in reading the mood of one’s organization or in
conducting a delicate negotiation with the competition.
Leadership scholars characterize this talent
as an ability to recognize patterns,
usually born of extensive experience. Their advice: Trust your gut, but
get lots of input as you make decisions.
That’s sound practice, of course, but
managers don’t always have the time to consult dozens of
people.<br />
<br />
Findings in neuroscience suggest that this
approach is probably too cautious.
Intuition, too, is in the brain, produced in part by a
class of neurons called <span class="bodyitalic">spindle cells</span>
because of their shape. They have a body
size about four times that of other brain cells,
with an extra-long branch to make attaching to other cells easier
and transmitting thoughts and feelings to
them quicker. This ultrarapid connection of
emotions, beliefs, and judgments creates what behavioral
scientists call our social guidance system. Spindle cells
trigger neural networks that come into play
whenever we have to choose the best response
among many—even for a task as routine as prioritizing a to-do
list. These cells also help us gauge whether someone
is trustworthy and right (or wrong) for a
job. Within one-twentieth of a second, our
spindle cells fire with information about how we feel about that person;
such “thin-slice” judgments can be very
accurate, as follow-up metrics reveal.
Therefore, leaders should not fear to act on those judgments,
provided that they are also attuned to others’ moods.<br />
<br />
Such
attunement is literally physical. Followers of an effective
leader experience rapport with her—or what we and our
colleague Annie McKee call “resonance.” Much
of this feeling arises unconsciously,
thanks to mirror neurons and spindle-cell circuitry. But another class
of neurons is also involved: <span class="bodyitalic">Oscillators</span>
coordinate people physically by regulating
how and when their bodies move together. You
can see oscillators in action when you watch people about to kiss;
their movements look like a dance, one body
responding to the other seamlessly. The same
dynamic occurs when two cellists play together. Not
only do they hit their notes in unison, but thanks to
oscillators, the two musicians’ right brain
hemispheres are more closely coordinated than
are the left and right sides of their individual brains.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="ahead">Firing Up Your Social Neurons</span></span></h3>
<span class="ahead"> </span> <br />
The
firing of social neurons is evident all around us. We once
analyzed a video of Herb Kelleher, a cofounder and
former CEO of Southwest Airlines, strolling
down the corridors of Love Field in Dallas,
the airline’s hub. We could practically see him activate the
mirror neurons, oscillators, and other social circuitry
in each person he encountered. He offered
beaming smiles, shook hands with customers as
he told them how much he appreciated their business, hugged employees
as he thanked them for their good work. And
he got back exactly what he gave. Typical
was the flight attendant whose face lit up when she
unexpectedly encountered her boss. “Oh, my honey!” she blurted,
brimming with warmth, and gave him a big
hug. She later explained, “Everyone just
feels like family with him.”<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, it’s not easy to turn
yourself into a Herb Kelleher or a Dr.
Humboldt if you’re not one already. We know of no
clear-cut methods to strengthen mirror neurons, spindle cells, and
oscillators; they activate by the thousands
per second during any encounter, and their
precise firing patterns remain elusive. What’s
more, self-conscious attempts to display social intelligence can
often backfire. When you make an intentional
effort to coordinate movements with another
person, it is not only oscillators that fire. In such
situations the brain uses other, less adept circuitry to
initiate and guide movements; as a result,
the interaction feels forced.<br />
<br />
The only way to develop your
social circuitry effectively is to undertake
the hard work of changing your behavior (see “Primal
Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance,” our
December 2001 HBR article with Annie McKee).
Companies interested in leadership
development need to begin by assessing the willingness of individuals to
enter a change program. Eager candidates
should first develop a personal vision for
change and then undergo a thorough diagnostic assessment,
akin to a medical workup, to identify areas of social
weakness and strength. Armed with the
feedback, the aspiring leader can be trained in
specific areas where developing better social skills will have the
greatest payoff. The training can range from
rehearsing better ways of interacting and
trying them out at every opportunity, to being shadowed
by a coach and then debriefed about what he observes, to
learning directly from a role model. The
options are many, but the road to success is
always tough.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="ahead">How to Become Socially Smarter</span></span></h3>
<span class="ahead"> </span> <br />
To
see what social intelligence training involves, consider the
case of a top executive we’ll call Janice. She had
been hired as a marketing manager by a <span class="bodyitalic">Fortune</span>
500 company because of her business
expertise, outstanding track record as a strategic thinker
and planner, reputation as a straight talker, and ability
to anticipate business issues that were
crucial for meeting goals. Within her first
six months on the job, however, Janice was floundering; other executives
saw her as aggressive and opinionated,
lacking in political astuteness, and
careless about what she said and to whom, especially higher-ups.<br />
<br />
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To save this promising leader, Janice’s boss called in Kathleen
Cavallo, an organizational psychologist and
senior consultant with the Hay Group, who
immediately put Janice through a 360-degree evaluation.
Her direct reports, peers, and managers gave Janice low
ratings on empathy, service orientation,
adaptability, and managing conflicts.
Cavallo learned more by having confidential conversations with the
people who worked most closely with Janice. Their
complaints focused on her failure to
establish rapport with people or even notice their
reactions. The bottom line: Janice was adept neither at reading
the social norms of a group nor at
recognizing people’s emotional cues when she
violated those norms. Even more dangerous, Janice did not realize
she was being too blunt in managing upward. When
she had a strong difference of opinion with a
manager, she did not sense when to back
off. Her “let’s get it all on the table and mix it up” approach was
threatening her job; top management was getting
fed up.<br />
<br />
When Cavallo presented this performance feedback as a
wake-up call to Janice, she was of course
shaken to discover that her job might be in
danger. What upset her more, though, was the realization that she
was not having her desired impact on other people.
Cavallo initiated coaching sessions in
which Janice would describe notable successes and
failures from her day. The more time Janice spent reviewing these
incidents, the better she became at
recognizing the difference between
expressing an idea with conviction and acting like a pit bull. She began
to anticipate how people might react to her
in a meeting or during a negative
performance review; she rehearsed more-astute ways to present
her opinions; and she developed a personal vision for
change. Such mental preparation activates
the social circuitry of the brain,
strengthening the neural connections you need to act effectively; that’s
why Olympic athletes put hundreds of hours
into mental review of their moves.<br />
<br />
At
one point, Cavallo asked Janice to name a leader in her
organization who had excellent social intelligence skills.
Janice identified a veteran senior manager
who was masterly both in the art of the
critique and at expressing disagreement in meetings without damaging
relationships. She asked him to help coach her,
and she switched to a job where she could
work with him—a post she held for two years. Janice
was lucky to find a mentor who believed that part of a leader’s
job is to develop human capital. Many bosses
would rather manage around a problem
employee than help her get better. Janice’s new boss took her on
because he recognized her other strengths as
invaluable, and his gut told him that Janice
could improve with guidance.<br />
<br />
Before meetings, Janice’s mentor
coached her on how to express her viewpoint
about contentious issues and how to talk to higher-ups,
and he modeled for her the art of performance feedback. By
observing him day in and day out, Janice
learned to affirm people even as she
challenged their positions or critiqued their performance. Spending time
with a living, breathing model of effective
behavior provides the perfect stimulation
for our mirror neurons, which allow us to directly
experience, internalize, and ultimately emulate what we observe.<br />
<br />
Janice’s
transformation was genuine and comprehensive. In a
sense, she went in one person and came out another. If you think
about it, that’s an important lesson from
neuroscience: Because our behavior creates
and develops neural networks, we are not necessarily prisoners
of our genes and our early childhood experiences.
Leaders can change if, like Janice, they are
ready to put in the effort. As she progressed in
her training, the social behaviors she was learning became more
like second nature to her. In scientific
terms, Janice was strengthening her social
circuits through practice. And as others responded to her, their
brains connected with hers more profoundly and
effectively, thereby reinforcing Janice’s
circuits in a virtuous circle. The upshot: Janice
went from being on the verge of dismissal to getting promoted to a
position two levels up.<br />
A few years
later, some members of Janice’s staff left the
company because they were not happy—so she asked Cavallo to come
back. Cavallo discovered that although
Janice had mastered the ability to
communicate and connect with management and peers, she still sometimes
missed cues from her direct reports when they
tried to signal their frustration. With
more help from Cavallo, Janice was able to turn the
situation around by refocusing her attention on her staff’s
emotional needs and fine-tuning her
communication style. Opinion surveys conducted
with Janice’s staff before and after Cavallo’s second round of
coaching documented dramatic increases in
their emotional commitment and intention to
stay in the organization. Janice and the staff also
delivered a 6% increase in annual sales, and after another
successful year she was made president of a
multibillion-dollar unit. Companies can
clearly benefit a lot from putting people through the kind of program
Janice completed.<br />
<br />
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="ahead">Hard Metrics of Social Intelligence</span></span></h3>
<span class="ahead"> </span> <br />
Our
research over the past decade has confirmed that there is a
large performance gap between socially intelligent and
socially unintelligent leaders. At a major
national bank, for example, we found that
levels of an executive’s social intelligence competencies predicted
yearly performance appraisals more powerfully
than did the emotional intelligence
competencies of self-awareness and self-management. (For a
brief explanation of our assessment tool, which focuses
on seven dimensions, see the exhibit “Are
You a Socially Intelligent Leader?”)<br />
<br />
<h3>
</h3>
<div class="sidebar">
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="sidebar-title">Are You a Socially Intelligent Leader?</span></span></h3>
</div>
<div class="sidebar">
<span class="sidebar-title"> </span> </div>
Social
intelligence turns out to be especially important in
crisis situations. Consider the experience of workers at a
large Canadian provincial health care system
that had gone through drastic cutbacks and a
reorganization. Internal surveys revealed that the
frontline workers had become frustrated that they were no longer
able to give their patients a high level of
care. Notably, workers whose leaders scored
low in social intelligence reported unmet patient-care needs at
three times the rate—and emotional exhaustion at
four times the rate—of their colleagues who
had supportive leaders. At the same time, nurses
with socially intelligent bosses reported good emotional health and
an enhanced ability to care for their
patients, even during the stress of layoffs
(see the sidebar “The Chemistry of Stress”).
These results should be compulsory reading for
the boards of companies in crisis. Such boards typically favor
expertise over social intelligence when
selecting someone to guide the institution
through tough times. <br />
A crisis manager needs both.<br />
<br />
<div class="surf_container_component" id="article-container">
<div id="article-content">
<div data-editable="true" data-editor-type="html-article" id="article">
<div class="sidebar">
<h3>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="sidebar-title">The Chemistry of Stress</span></span></h3>
</div>
<div class="sidebar">
<span class="sidebar-title"> </span> </div>
<span class="contextbreak">• • •</span></div>
<div data-editable="true" data-editor-type="html-article" id="article">
<span class="contextbreak"> </span>As
we explore the discoveries of neuroscience, we are struck by
how closely the best psychological theories of
development map to the newly charted
hardwiring of the brain. Back in the 1950s, for example,
British pediatrician and psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott was
advocating for play as a way to accelerate
children’s learning. Similarly, British
physician and psychoanalyst John Bowlby emphasized the importance of
providing a secure base from which people can
strive toward goals, take risks without
unwarranted fear, and freely explore new possibilities.
Hard-bitten executives may consider it absurdly indulgent
and financially untenable to concern
themselves with such theories in a world
where bottom-line performance is the yardstick of success. But as
new ways of scientifically measuring human
development start to bear out these theories
and link them directly with performance, the so-called
soft side of business begins to look not so soft after all.<br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="surf_static" id="authorBios">
<div id="articleWrittenBy">
<div class="articleRightColumnBox" id="articleAuthorBox">
<div class="articleRightColumnBoxContent" id="articleAuthorBoxContent">
<span class="Author">
<span class="AuthorBio">
<span class="bodybold">Daniel Goleman</span> (<a href="mailto:contact@danielgoleman.info">contact@danielgoleman.info</a>)
is a cochairman of the Consortium for Research
on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations,
which is based at Rutgers University’s Graduate School of
Applied and Professional Psychology in Piscataway, New Jersey.
He is the author of <span class="bodyitalic">Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships</span> (Bantam, 2006).
</span>
</span>
<span class="Author">
<span class="AuthorBio">
<span class="bodybold">Richard Boyatzis</span> (<a href="mailto:richard.boyatzis@case.edu">richard.boyatzis@case.edu</a>)
is the H.R. Horvitz Chair of Family Business
and a professor in the departments of
organizational behavior, psychology, and cognitive science at Case
Western Reserve University in Cleveland. He is a
coauthor, with Annie McKee and Frances Johnston,
of <span class="bodyitalic">Becoming a Resonant Leader</span> (Harvard Business Press, 2008).
</span>
</span>
<br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<br />
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-78780663556774480702014-02-28T04:25:00.002-08:002014-02-28T04:25:22.943-08:00Social Intelligence<div id="branding">
<div id="identity">
<h1>
<a href="http://www.danielgoleman.info/">Daniel <span>Goleman</span></a></h1>
<div id="tagline">
<b>Emotional intelligence, social intelligence, ecological intelligence</b></div>
<div id="tagline">
<br /></div>
<div id="tagline">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
<header>
<div class="page-header">
<h2 class="page-title" itemprop="headline">
<a href="http://www.danielgoleman.info/topics/social-intelligence/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Social Intelligence</span></a></h2>
<h1 class="page-title" itemprop="headline">
</h1>
</div>
</header>
<section class="post_content clearfix" itemprop="articleBody">
<strong>The most fundamental discovery of this new science: We are wired to connect. </strong><br />
<br />
<br />
Neuroscience has discovered that our brain’s very design makes it
sociable, inexorably drawn into an intimate brain-to-brain linkup
whenever we engage with another person. That neural bridge lets us
impact the brain—and so the body—of everyone we interact with, just as
they do us.<br />
<br />
Even our most routine encounters act as regulators in the brain,
priming emotions in us, some desirable, others not. The more strongly
connected we are with someone emotionally, the greater the mutual force.
The most potent exchanges occur with those people with whom we spend
the greatest amount of time day in and day out, year after
year—particularly those we care about the most.<br />
<br />
During these neural linkups, our brains engage in an emotional tango,
a dance of feelings. Our social interactions operate as modulators,
something like interpersonal thermostats that continually reset key
aspects of our brain function as they orchestrate our emotions.<br />
<br />
The resulting feelings have far-reaching consequences, in turn
rippling throughout our body, sending out cascades of hormones that
regulate biological systems from our heart to immune cells. Perhaps most
astonishing, science now tracks connections between the most stressful
relationships and the very operation of specific genes that regulate the
immune system.<br />
<br />
To a surprising extent, then, our relationships mold not just our
experience, but our biology. The brain-to-brain link allows our
strongest relationships to shape us in ways as benign as whether we
laugh at the same jokes or as profound as which genes are (or are not)
activated in t-cells, the immune system’s foot soldiers in the constant
battle against invading bacteria and viruses.<br />
That represents a double-edged sword: nourishing relationships have a
beneficial impact on our health, while toxic ones can act like slow
poison in our bodies.<br />
<br />
Virtually all the major scientific discoveries I draw on in this
volume have emerged since Emotional Intelligence appeared in 1995, and
they continue to surface at a quickening pace. I intend this book to be a
companion volume to Emotional Intelligence, exploring the same terrain
of human life from a different vantage point, one that allows a wider
swath of understanding of our personal world.<br />
<br />
When I wrote Emotional Intelligence, my focus was on a crucial set of
human capacities within an individual, the ability to manage our own
emotions and our inner potential for positive relationships. Here the
picture enlarges beyond a one-person psychology—those capacities an
individual has within—to a two-person psychology: what transpires as we
connect.<br />
<br />
Take, for example, empathy, the sensing of another person’s feelings
that allows rapport. Empathy is an individual ability, one that resides
inside the person. But rapport only arises between people, as a property
that emerges from their interaction. Here the spotlight shifts to those
ephemeral moments that emerge as we interact. These take on deep
consequence as we realize how, through their sum total, we create one
another.<br />
<br />
— From the prologue to <em>Social Intelligence</em><br />
</section>NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-8893282570287779322014-02-04T07:50:00.000-08:002014-02-04T07:50:16.028-08:00Proton radius puzzle may be solved by quantum gravity<br />
<h2>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://phys.org/">phys.org</a></span></h2>
<br />
<br />
<header class="content-head">
<h2>
<a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: x-large;">Proton radius puzzle may be solved by quantum gravity</span></a></h2>
<h5 class="data">
Nov 26, 2013 by Lisa Zyga <a href="http://phys.org/editorials/"><img alt="feature" class="toolsicon ediorial" height="14" src="http://cdn.physorg.com/tmpl/v4/img/img-dot.gif" width="60" /> </a></h5>
<h5 class="data">
<img alt="Proton radius puzzle may be solved by quantum gravity" src="http://cdn.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/2013/525px-quark_structure_proton.svg.jpg" /></h5>
<h5 class="data">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> (Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size. </span></span></span></h5>
<h5 class="data">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: small;"> But when trying to further improve the precision of the <a class="textTag" href="http://phys.org/tags/proton/" rel="tag">proton</a>
radius value in 2010 with a third experimental technique, physicists
got a value of 0.842 ± 0.001 fm—a difference of 7 deviations from the
official value. These experiments used muonic hydrogen, in which a
negatively charged muon orbits around the proton, instead of atomic
hydrogen, in which an electron orbits around the proton. Because a muon
is 200 times heavier than an electron, a muon orbits closer to a proton
than an electron does, and can determine the proton size more precisely.</span></span></span></h5>
<h5 class="data">
</h5>
This inconsistency between proton radius values, called the "proton
radius puzzle," has gained a lot of attention lately and has led to
several proposed explanations. Some of these explanations include new
degrees of freedom beyond the Standard Model, as well as extra
dimensions.<br />
<br />
Now in a new paper published in <i>EPL</i>, physicist Roberto Onofrio
at the University of Padova in Padova, Italy, and the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
has suggested that the muonic hydrogen experiment may be providing a
hint of quantum gravity. He has proposed that the proton radius puzzle
can be solved by considering a new theory of quantum gravity that is
based on the unification of gravity and the weak force, also called
"gravitoweak unification."<br />
<br />
In this theoretical scenario, conventional Newtonian gravity holds at
large distances, but morphs into a different kind of gravitational
interaction at very small scales. Specifically, the strength of the
gravitational interactions is equal to the strength of the weak charged
interactions that occur among subatomic particles. The weak charged
interactions can be considered as manifestations of the quantized
structure of gravity at or below the Fermi scale.<br />
<br />
As Onofrio theoretically shows in his paper, quantum gravity of this
nature contributes an additional binding energy to the muonic hydrogen
experiments, which explains the smaller proton radius value. In these
experiments, the proton radius value was measured in terms of an energy
difference between two energy levels, called the Lamb shift.
<br />
Onofrio calculated that the gravitational energy contribution in the
atomic hydrogen experiments is about two orders of magnitude smaller
than in the muonic hydrogen experiments, due to the electron's smaller
mass compared to the muon. Onofrio evaluated that the energy
contribution should be noticeable when measuring the Lamb shift of <a class="textTag" href="http://phys.org/tags/atomic+hydrogen/" rel="tag">atomic hydrogen</a>,
and its absence in the data could imply the presence of a
flavor-dependent interaction, similar to what happens already for the
well-known charged weak interaction.<br />
"Muonic hydrogen is unique in that it probes small distances at an
unprecedented precision, so it may pick up any small force acting
between the constituents," Onofrio told <i>Phys.org</i>. "Since the
explanation I provide relies on the mass of the nuclei, complementary
tests may be performed on variants of muonic hydrogen currently under
experimental study, more specifically the measurement of the Lamb shift
in muonic deuterium, and muonic helium spectroscopy. In the <i>EPL</i> paper, I make a definite prediction for muonic deuterium, for instance."<br />
<br />
Perhaps the most exciting outcome of this work is that it shows that muonic <a class="textTag" href="http://phys.org/tags/hydrogen/" rel="tag">hydrogen</a> may be used to test possible scenarios of gravitoweak unification, with <a class="textTag" href="http://phys.org/tags/weak+interactions/" rel="tag">weak interactions</a> providing evidence of gravity's effects at very small scales.<br />
"This work shows that the combination of high-precision spectroscopy
and the use of exotic atoms with size in between ordinary atoms and
nuclei may open a novel way to test physics at the attometer scale, a
scale at which, according to my conjecture developed in a former paper, <a class="textTag" href="http://phys.org/tags/quantum+gravity/" rel="tag">quantum gravity</a> is acting also under the form of what we now know as weak interactions," Onofrio said.<br />
<br />
Onofrio plans to continue to pursue the gravitoweak conjecture in
various directions, and to investigate how it matches with what we know
from the Standard Model of particle physics in which weak interactions
are mixed with electromagnetic ones. He has outlined the future research
landscape in a second paper, listed below.<h5 class="data">
</h5>
<h5 class="data">
<b>Explore further:</b>
<a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-02-textbook-radius-proton-wrong.html#inlRlv" itemprop="relatedLink">Updating the textbook: Is the radius of a proton wrong?</a>
</h5>
<b>More information:</b> Roberto Onofrio. "Proton radius puzzle and quantum gravity at the Fermi scale." <i>EPL</i>, 104 (2013) 20002. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/104/20002" target="_blank">DOI: 10.1209/0295-5075/104/20002</a><br />
Roberto Onofrio. "On Weak Interactions as Short-Distance Manifestations of Gravity." <i>Modern Physics Letters A</i>, Vol. 28, No. 7 (2013) 1350022 (7 pages). <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S0217732313500223" target="_blank">DOI: 10.1142/S0217732313500223</a><br />
<div class="post-copyright">
<b>Journal reference:</b>
<a class="textTag" href="http://phys.org/journals/europhysics-letters/" rel="news">Europhysics Letters (EPL)</a>
<a class="extra" href="http://phys.org/journals/europhysics-letters/" rel="news"><img alt="search and more info" class="toolsicon isrc" height="16" src="http://cdn.physorg.com/tmpl/v4/img/img-dot.gif" title="search and more info" width="16" /></a>
<a class="extra" href="http://iopscience.iop.org/0295-5075" target="_blank"><img alt="website" class="toolsicon iwbs" height="16" src="http://cdn.physorg.com/tmpl/v4/img/img-dot.gif" title="website" width="16" /></a>
<a class="textTag" href="http://phys.org/journals/physics-letters-a/" rel="news">Physics Letters A</a>
<a class="extra" href="http://phys.org/journals/physics-letters-a/" rel="news"><img alt="search and more info" class="toolsicon isrc" height="16" src="http://cdn.physorg.com/tmpl/v4/img/img-dot.gif" title="search and more info" width="16" /></a>
<a class="extra" href="http://www.journals.elsevier.com/physics-letters-a/" target="_blank"><img alt="website" class="toolsicon iwbs" height="16" src="http://cdn.physorg.com/tmpl/v4/img/img-dot.gif" title="website" width="16" /></a>
<br />
</div>
<h5 class="data">
</h5>
<div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
<section><b>Explore further:</b>
<a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-02-textbook-radius-proton-wrong.html#inlRlv" itemprop="relatedLink">Updating the textbook: Is the radius of a proton wrong?</a>
<br />
</section>
<b>More information:</b> Roberto Onofrio. "Proton radius puzzle and quantum gravity at the Fermi scale." <i>EPL</i>, 104 (2013) 20002. <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1209/0295-5075/104/20002" target="_blank">DOI: 10.1209/0295-5075/104/20002</a><br />
Roberto Onofrio. "On Weak Interactions as Short-Distance Manifestations of Gravity." <i>Modern Physics Letters A</i>, Vol. 28, No. 7 (2013) 1350022 (7 pages). <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1142/S0217732313500223" target="_blank">DOI: 10.1142/S0217732313500223</a><br />
<footer class="post-floor clearfix">
<div class="post-copyright">
<b>Journal reference:</b>
<a class="textTag" href="http://phys.org/journals/europhysics-letters/" rel="news">Europhysics Letters (EPL)</a>
<a class="extra" href="http://phys.org/journals/europhysics-letters/" rel="news"><img alt="search and more info" class="toolsicon isrc" height="16" src="http://cdn.physorg.com/tmpl/v4/img/img-dot.gif" title="search and more info" width="16" /></a>
<a class="extra" href="http://iopscience.iop.org/0295-5075" target="_blank"><img alt="website" class="toolsicon iwbs" height="16" src="http://cdn.physorg.com/tmpl/v4/img/img-dot.gif" title="website" width="16" /></a>
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<a class="extra" href="http://phys.org/journals/physics-letters-a/" rel="news"><img alt="search and more info" class="toolsicon isrc" height="16" src="http://cdn.physorg.com/tmpl/v4/img/img-dot.gif" title="search and more info" width="16" /></a>
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</footer><br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a></div>
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<div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
<br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a><div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
<br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a></div>
</div>
<h5 class="data">
</h5>
<div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
<br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a></div>
<div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
<br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a><div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
<br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a></div>
</div>
<h5 class="data">
</h5>
<div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
<figure class="image-block"><figcaption class="image-block-caption">The quark structure of the proton. Credit: Arpad Horvath / Wikipedia.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<section class="article-block">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
</section><br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a><div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
<figure class="image-block"><figcaption class="image-block-caption">The quark structure of the proton. Credit: Arpad Horvath / Wikipedia.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<section class="article-block">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
</section><br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a><div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
<figure class="image-block"><figcaption class="image-block-caption">The quark structure of the proton. Credit: Arpad Horvath / Wikipedia.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<section class="article-block">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
</section><br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a><div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
<figure class="image-block"><figcaption class="image-block-caption">The quark structure of the proton. Credit: Arpad Horvath / Wikipedia.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<section class="article-block">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
</section><br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a><div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
<figure class="image-block"><figcaption class="image-block-caption">The quark structure of the proton. Credit: Arpad Horvath / Wikipedia.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<section class="article-block">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
</section><br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a><div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
<figure class="image-block"><figcaption class="image-block-caption">The quark structure of the proton. Credit: Arpad Horvath / Wikipedia.
</figcaption>
</figure>
<section class="article-block">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
</section><br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<h5 class="data">
</h5>
<div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
<br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a><div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
<br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a>vvv<div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
(Phys.org) —Officially, the radius of a proton is 0.88 ± 0.01 femtometers (fm, or 10<sup>-15</sup>
m). Researchers attained that value using two methods: first, by
measuring the proton's energy levels using hydrogen spectroscopy, and
second, by using electron scattering experiments, where an electron beam
is shot at a proton and the way the electrons scatter is used to
calculate the proton's size.
<br /><br /> Read more at: <a href="http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp">http://phys.org/news/2013-11-proton-radius-puzzle-quantum-gravity.html#jCp</a></div>
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</header>NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-53022244450629046342014-01-18T22:39:00.003-08:002014-01-18T22:39:42.101-08:00Discovery of Quantum Vibrations in 'Microtubules' Inside Brain Neurons Supports Controversial Theory of Consciousness<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140116085105.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Discovery of Quantum Vibrations in 'Microtubules' Inside Brain Neurons Supports Controversial Theory of Consciousness</a></span></h2>
<br />
<span class="date">Jan. 16, 2014</span> — A review and update of a controversial 20-year-old theory of consciousness published in<em> Physics of Life Reviews</em>
claims that consciousness derives from deeper level, finer scale
activities inside brain neurons. The recent discovery of quantum
vibrations in "microtubules" inside brain neurons corroborates this
theory, according to review authors Stuart Hameroff and Sir Roger
Penrose. They suggest that EEG rhythms (brain waves) also derive from
deeper level microtubule vibrations, and that from a practical
standpoint, treating brain microtubule vibrations could benefit a host
of mental, neurological, and cognitive conditions.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://images.sciencedaily.com/2014/01/140116085105-large.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img alt="" border="0" height="328" src="http://images.sciencedaily.com/2014/01/140116085105.jpg" width="300" /></a><br />
<br />
<div id="caption" style="padding: 5px 0 10px 0;">
<em>A review
and update of a controversial 20-year-old theory of consciousness
published in Physics of Life Reviews claims that consciousness derives
from deeper level, finer scale activities inside brain neurons. (Credit:
© James Steidl / Fotolia)</em></div>
<br />
<div id="text">
The theory, called "orchestrated objective reduction" ('Orch OR'),
was first put forward in the mid-1990s by eminent mathematical physicist
Sir Roger Penrose, FRS, Mathematical Institute and Wadham College,
University of Oxford, and prominent anesthesiologist Stuart Hameroff,
MD, Anesthesiology, Psychology and Center for Consciousness Studies, The
University of Arizona, Tucson. They suggested that quantum vibrational
computations in microtubules were "orchestrated" ("Orch") by synaptic
inputs and memory stored in microtubules, and terminated by Penrose
"objective reduction" ('OR'), hence "Orch OR." Microtubules are major
components of the cell structural skeleton.<br />
<br />
Orch OR was harshly criticized from its inception, as the brain was
considered too "warm, wet, and noisy" for seemingly delicate quantum
processes.. However, evidence has now shown warm quantum coherence in
plant photosynthesis, bird brain navigation, our sense of smell, and
brain microtubules. The recent discovery of warm temperature quantum
vibrations in microtubules inside brain neurons by the research group
led by Anirban Bandyopadhyay, PhD, at the National Institute of Material
Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan (and now at MIT), corroborates the pair's
theory and suggests that EEG rhythms also derive from deeper level
microtubule vibrations. In addition, work from the laboratory of
Roderick G. Eckenhoff, MD, at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests
that anesthesia, which selectively erases consciousness while sparing
non-conscious brain activities, acts via microtubules in brain neurons.<br />
<br />
"The origin of consciousness reflects our place in the universe, the
nature of our existence. Did consciousness evolve from complex
computations among brain neurons, as most scientists assert? Or has
consciousness, in some sense, been here all along, as spiritual
approaches maintain?" ask Hameroff and Penrose in the current review.
"This opens a potential Pandora's Box, but our theory accommodates both
these views, suggesting consciousness derives from quantum vibrations in
microtubules, protein polymers inside brain neurons, which both govern
neuronal and synaptic function, and connect brain processes to
self-organizing processes in the fine scale, 'proto-conscious' quantum
structure of reality."<br />
<br />
After 20 years of skeptical criticism, "the evidence now clearly
supports Orch OR," continue Hameroff and Penrose. "Our new paper updates
the evidence, clarifies Orch OR quantum bits, or "qubits," as helical
pathways in microtubule lattices, rebuts critics, and reviews 20
testable predictions of Orch OR published in 1998 -- of these, six are
confirmed and none refuted."<br />
<br />
An important new facet of the theory is introduced. Microtubule
quantum vibrations (e.g. in megahertz) appear to interfere and produce
much slower EEG "beat frequencies." Despite a century of clinical use,
the underlying origins of EEG rhythms have remained a mystery. Clinical
trials of brief brain stimulation aimed at microtubule resonances with
megahertz mechanical vibrations using transcranial ultrasound have shown
reported improvements in mood, and may prove useful against Alzheimer's
disease and brain injury in the future.<br />
<br />
Lead author Stuart Hameroff concludes, "Orch OR is the most rigorous,
comprehensive and successfully-tested theory of consciousness ever put
forth. From a practical standpoint, treating brain microtubule
vibrations could benefit a host of mental, neurological, and cognitive
conditions."<br />
<br />
The review is accompanied by eight commentaries from outside
authorities, including an Australian group of Orch OR arch-skeptics. To
all, Hameroff and Penrose respond robustly.<br />
<br />
Penrose, Hameroff and Bandyopadhyay will explore their theories
during a session on "Microtubules and the Big Consciousness Debate" at
the Brainstorm Sessions, a public three-day event at the Brakke Grond in
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, January 16-18, 2014. They will engage
skeptics in a debate on the nature of consciousness, and Bandyopadhyay
and his team will couple microtubule vibrations from active neurons to
play Indian musical instruments. "Consciousness depends on anharmonic
vibrations of microtubules inside neurons, similar to certain kinds of
Indian music, but unlike Western music which is harmonic," Hameroff
explains.<br />
<br />
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<strong>Story Source:</strong><br />
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The above story is based on <a href="http://www.elsevier.com/about/press-releases/research-and-journals/discovery-of-quantum-vibrations-in-microtubules-inside-brain-neurons-corroborates-controversial-20-year-old-theory-of-consciousness?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials</a> provided by <a class="blue" href="http://www.elsevier.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><strong><span id="source">Elsevier</span></strong></a>. <br />
<em>Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.</em></blockquote>
<hr />
<strong>Journal References</strong>:<br />
<ol style="margin: 5px 0 5px 18px; padding: 0;">
<li>Stuart Hameroff and Roger Penrose. <strong>Consciousness in the universe: A review of the ‘Orch OR’ theory</strong>. <em>Physics of Life Reviews</em>, 2013 DOI: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2013.08.002" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">10.1016/j.plrev.2013.08.002</a></li>
<li>Stuart Hameroff, MD, and Roger Penrose. <strong>Reply to criticism of the ‘Orch OR qubit’–‘Orchestrated objective reduction’ is scientifically justified</strong>. <em>Physics of Life Reviews</em>, 2013 DOI: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2013.11.00" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">10.1016/j.plrev.2013.11.00</a></li>
<li>Stuart Hameroff, Roger Penrose. <strong>Consciousness in the universe</strong>. <em>Physics of Life Reviews</em>, 2013; DOI: <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2013.08.002" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">10.1016/j.plrev.2013.08.002</a></li>
</ol>
<br />NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8969295566805950664.post-25804133650108008062013-12-04T12:50:00.000-08:002013-12-04T12:50:25.066-08:00Europe's Ancestors: Cro-Magnon 28,000 Years Old Had DNA Like Modern Humans<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Science News</span></h3>
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<h2 class="story" id="headline">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Europe's Ancestors: Cro-Magnon 28,000 Years Old Had DNA Like Modern Humans</span></h2>
<a href="http://images.sciencedaily.com/2008/07/080715204741-large.jpg" rel="thumbnail"><img alt="" border="0" height="290" src="http://images.sciencedaily.com/2008/07/080715204741.jpg" width="300" /></a><br />
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<em>Tibia
fragment. DNA was extracted from this fragment and from skull splinters,
and all extracts yielded the same HVR I sequence. (Credit: David
Caramelli et al. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002700.g001)</em></div>
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<div id="first">
<span class="date">July 16, 2008</span> — Some 40,000
years ago, Cro-Magnons -- the first people who had a skeleton that
looked anatomically modern -- entered Europe, coming from Africa. A
group of geneticists, coordinated by Guido Barbujani and David Caramelli
of the Universities of Ferrara and Florence, shows that a Cro-Magnoid
individual who lived in Southern Italy 28,000 years ago was a modern
European, genetically as well as anatomically.</div>
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<div id="text">
The Cro-Magnoid people long coexisted in Europe with other humans,
the Neandertals, whose anatomy and DNA were clearly different from ours.
However, obtaining a reliable sequence of Cro-Magnoid DNA was
technically challenging.<br />
<br />
"The risk in the study of ancient individuals is to attribute to the
fossil specimen the DNA left there by archaeologists or biologists who
manipulated it," Barbujani says. "To avoid that, we followed all phases
of the retrieval of the fossil bones and typed the DNA sequences of all
people who had any contacts with them."<br />
<br />
The researchers wrote in the newly published paper: "The Paglicci 23
individual carried a mtDNA sequence that is still common in Europe, and
which radically differs from those of the almost contemporary
Neandertals, demonstrating a genealogical continuity across 28,000
years, from Cro-Magnoid to modern Europeans."<br />
<br />
The results demonstrate for the first time that the anatomical
differences between Neandertals and Cro-Magnoids were associated with
clear genetic differences. The Neandertal people, who lived in Europe
for nearly 300,000 years, are not the ancestors of modern Europeans.<br />
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NOTES FROM THE WILDSIDEhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03499454400310101800noreply@blogger.com0