Day: September 3, 2008

Wednesday Round Up #27

This week I bring a diverse set of anthropology readings, a bunch of policy pieces I’ve found interesting of late, and a long list of psychiatry posts and articles at the end. Enjoy!

Anthropology

Robert Bellah, The Renouncers
The esteemed US sociologist on notions of progress and disaster, or negotiating between Habermas and the ancient Greeks

Mind Hacks, Through a Lab Darkly?
“Cognitive ethology”—getting the psychologists out of the lab and into the field. And I was just lecturing to my qualitative methods students about how ethnographic research can increase the validity of our measures…

Michiko Kakutani, When Fear and Chaos Are Normal, Peace and Safety Become Unimaginable
Review of the new book, Waiting for an Ordinary Day: The Unraveling of Life in Iraq, by the Wall Street journalist with anthropological sensibilities Farnaz Fassihi

LL Wynn, HTS and Military Targeting?
Reaction over at Culture Matters to the recent Harpers essay, “Human quicksand for the U.S. Army, a crash course in cultural studies” (subscription needed for full access) by Steve Featherstone

Abby Aguirre, Roaming Freely in a Land of Restraints
Review of the new book by Raja Shehadeh, Palestinian Walks: Forays Into a Vanishing Landscape, covering six walks the author took in the West Bank and the encounters and reflections that brought

Hannah Seligson, Girl Power at School, but Not at the Office
The gender gap in the transition from university to work, building off a new book by the journalist author

Benedict Carey, Spot on Popularity Scale Speaks to the Future; Middle Has Its Rewards
Longitudinal study of high school students – mean queens and lording jocks fade, while socially skilled individuals find happiness… Or popularity as seen through social networks.

Natalie Angier, About Death, Just Like Us or Pretty Much Unaware?
Animals coping with the death of a loved one. More like us than we had imagined

Carl Zimmer, Gaming Evolution
The new video game Spore finds a happy home, with some reservations, among hard-core academic biologists

Policy

Alan Blinder, Is History Siding With Obama’s Economic Plan?
Looks like yes. Democrats rule over better economic times, with less inequality, than Republicans since the post WWII era. “Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.”
Based on the book Unequal Democracy by Larry Bartels. And see here for a long NY Times essay on Obama’s economics.

Continue reading “Wednesday Round Up #27”

Slides on brain evolution and diet

I just gave a lecture on hominin brain evolution, and it’s left my own brain kind of fried. So no clever posting from me (‘Is there ever?’ I hear the skeptics asking…). I’ll just share these slides. All the graphics have been captured from different online sources — I’ve done my best to put in appropriate credits, but that’s sometimes been difficult (or I’ve just been working so late that I forgot to do it). If I’ve included something you’d prefer I don’t, and if you’re the one who has the rights to something, just drop me a line and I’ll quickly cease and desist. My goal is only to share around the resources, not to take credit for anyone else’s work.

5-2braindiet
It’s a big file (about 3 mb), so it might take a minute depending on your connection.

A word of warning: I made this in Keynote on a Mac, so the animations and transitions might not do well on Microsoft Powerpoint. The video is no longer embedded. Here it is from Youtube:


Obviously, I don’t take the video at face value. Not just the claims about meat but also assuming that humans are the ‘most developed species’ on the planet. But it’s a great jumping off point for a discussion of diet and evolution. I did an earlier piece on this subject at: Red meat, Neandertals were meant to eat it.

If you’re interested in the whole course I’m teaching, I have previously posted the unit syllabus: Human evolution syllabus.

Edelman, Evolution and Encephalisation

The brain exhibits all of the properties of an evolutionary system. In the developing brain, there is an initial oversupply of neurons. The combinatorial possibilities that exist within and between neuronal groups is a source of variation that is selected from. The brain, which is only approx. 25% formed at birth, matures through processes of degeneracy and associativity. The dynamic interplay between the variation and selection of neuronal groups is a source of self-organisation. The brain has the capacity to store patterns of activation and to recreate acts separated in time from the original events. Memory biases the processes of organisation towards increased complexity. (For a more extensive explanation of the brain as an evolutionary system see Edelman 1987; 1993; 2004).

To be honest, I have not met many people who truly understand every aspect of Edelman’s theory of neuronal group selection (TNGS). In fact, if I have gone some way to understanding some part of his theory, then it has been largely through my reading of secondary literature material, returning frequently to his new books and then discussing his work with some of my friends Continue reading “Edelman, Evolution and Encephalisation”