Day: August 24, 2008

Slate Video: Can Apes Really Talk?

John Cohen at Slate interviews researchers at the Great Ape Trust, a bastion of ape language research, as well as some of their skeptics about their claims for ape language. If you wnat more, Wikipedia provides some general background on ape language research.

What I find fascinating in this research: the revelations about cognition, symbolic abilities, and grammar, all helping to show us that the gap we set between ourselves and one of our favorite “others” is not so great as generally thought. On the other hand, the incredible physiological and neurological skills that go into the production of human speech show the strong selective pressures that existed during our human evolution.

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List of Topical Round Ups

Here are all the topical round ups I’ve done over the previous months, a complement to the more varied weekly round ups (first twenty of those outlined here). With classes starting on Tuesday and some academic writing that needs to get done, I am not planning to do more of these topical summaries.

However, if anyone out there is interested in doing one (or having their students develop one), please contact me, Daniel Lende, dlende at nd.edu. There are lots of subjects that could be covered—social neuroscience, ritual, behavioral economics, mirror neurons…

Cultural Evolution

Neurocriticism

Sports

Anthropology and Social Design

Drugs

Addiction

Diet, Weight and Health

Evolution

Anthropology

Video Games: Gaming Overview

Video Games #2: Social Science and Design

Video Games, Brain and Psychology

The first PhD in Neuroanthropology!

Congratulations goes to Juan Dominguez from Colombia who has spent the last seven years in Australia completing a Post-graduate diploma in Arts (Anthropology), Honours in Anthropology and the first ever PhD promoting neuroanthropology! I am sure that Juan would also like me to mention the role of his principal supervisor, Dr Douglas Lewis, who has also played a role in the formation and development of Neuroanthropology. (In fact, we only registered neuroanthropology.com three days before Dr Douglas Lewis attempted to do the same thing). Dr Lewis has been teaching a subject called “The Evolution of Consciousness” at Melbourne University for some years (he lectured me in the subject in 2005). His principal field-site is in Flores and will be publishing two books based on his fourteen years of research there (that may be an under-estimation because Dr Lewis has been working there since 1977). Those books will definately be worth keeping an eye out for!

On Saturday, 23rd August, Juan (from the department of Social and Environmental Enquiry) was presented his PhD by Associate Dean of the School, Associate Professor Mary Wlodek. Continue reading “The first PhD in Neuroanthropology!”