Simple this week – top, anthro, neuro
Top
Natalie Angier, Brainy Echidna Proves Looks Aren’t Everything
Did you know they give birth to puggles? And 50% of their brain is neocortex, compared to our measly 30%
Robert Sawyer, All Screens Are Not Created Equal
Yes, the internet and computing are good for you – we shouldn’t cast things in older ideas about attention
Harvey Whitehouse, Anthropology in Crisis – What, Still?
“Imagine a domain of scholarly enquiry that based its theories on multiple and conflicting intuitions about the basic nature of the phenomena under study. It would struggle to get off the ground because of interminable turf wars among competing coalitions with widely differing foundational assumptions about the nature and purpose of scholarly enquiry. Unfortunately, we don’t have to imagine it. That is exactly the problem, or at least has been the problem historically, with social and cultural anthropology.
Since we lack dedicated cognitive machinery for reasoning about social complexity, we are prone to borrowing intuitions proper to alien ontological domains. Consequently social scientists at turns reify institutions, biologize social categories, anthropomorphise offices, and mentalize corporate groups.”
Mike the Mad Biologist, Behavioral Economics: Not Everything Is Irrational
As someone on the irrationality train (I study addiction, after all), it’s refreshing to have a well-considered critique
Anthro
Jean Jackson, Awá Human Rights Report
Indigenous groups in Colombia caught between right-wing paramilitaries, leftist guerillas, and the Colombian army
Neuroanthropology 