Author: dlende

Anthropology and Neuroscience Podcasts

Similar to the earlier post on video resources online, I have compiled here a list of podcasts for your perusal. I have split them into neuroscience and anthropology categories. And please, if you have some worthy additions to make, please comment below!

One general place to look is PodFeed, where you can do searches for your favorite topics. Here’s one I found from Disarmament Insight on What Do We Know About Levels of Human Violence?

You can also try sites like Open Culture’s Podcast Library, Podcasting News, Blinkx (primarily video) and Radio OpenSource.

You can also check out two great audio resources online, National Public Radio and the British Broadcasting Company. Here’s a piece from NPR, Lack of Sleep Linked to Later Health Problems. And one from BBC, What Factors Determine What We Eat? I found these through word searches such as anthropology, brain and culture from the main page.

Anthropology Podcasts

Society for Applied Anthropology Podcasts
Recent podcast: The Art and Science of Applied Anthropology

Anthropology.Net Podcasts
Recent podcast: Ancient DNA from the Neanderthal Genome

American Anthropological Association Podcast Series
Recent podcast: Recent developments at the Association

Neuroscience Podcasts

Dr. Ginger Campbell’s Brain Science Podcasts is a great place to start and to finish too!
Recent podcast: Interview with Rachel Herz, author of The Scent of Desire

Continue reading “Anthropology and Neuroscience Podcasts”

Some Blogs: Anthropology, Design, Business

These blogs are similar in spirit to neuroanthropology: interdisciplinary, mixing experience into the mix, with good writing, ideas and links. They just focus on other pragmatics. Enjoy.

CultureBy: This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Economics and Anthropology
Recent Post: Cloudiness: Of Selves, Groups, Networks and Ideas

Purposive Drift
Recent Post: A Map Is Not the Territory (Revisited)

Open Range Anthropologist
Recent Post: Purists vs. Pragmatists in Driving Social Change: Which Is Better?

The Restless Mind
Recent Post: Postcards from the Edge

Experientia: Putting People First
Recent Post: ZIBA Design Founder: “It’s All About Experience”

Michael Pollan, Energy, and Change

Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (one of the best recent anthropology books in my mind, even if it’s not by an anthropologist), has an essay out today, Why Bother? It is part of the New York Times Magazine themed issue, The Green Issue: Some Bold Steps to Make Your Carbon Footprint Smaller.

In his essay Pollan sums up how we, as normal people with normal powers, might change our approach to energy dependence. In particular, he focuses on overcoming the sense of helplessness we often feel, arguing cogently that this sort of “dependence” has been instilled through increasing social and economic specialization and a universalist approach in economics and politics.

Pollan points to the importance of local doing, to How and not just Why, as a central way to break the specialization and universalist trap. By focusing on mindsets, behaviors, experiences, and life roles (sound familiar?), Pollan gets at the everyday dimensions of life that can work as much change as technology or global accords. We just have to do it ourselves, even as we cultivate new ways to encourage and support these everyday processes.

(Still, for those of you who prefer a more political economy take on the problems we face, see Pollan’s highly recommended pieces You Are What You Grow and Weed It and Reap, taking on the US food bill, agribusiness, and energy-dependent processed food.)

Here’s an annotated version of Why Bother?

Early in the essay Pollan writes, “For us to wait for legislation or technology to solve the problem of how we’re living our lives suggests we’re not really serious about changing — something our politicians cannot fail to notice. They will not move until we do. Indeed, to look to leaders and experts, to laws and money and grand schemes, to save us from our predicament represents precisely the sort of thinking — passive, delegated, dependent for solutions on specialists — that helped get us into this mess in the first place. It’s hard to believe that the same sort of thinking could now get us out of it.”

Continue reading “Michael Pollan, Energy, and Change”

Video Resources

I have collected different video resources together under one heading and added them to the Web Resources page. I have only included specialized sites, not YouTube or Google Video or the like.

Besides TED, Dana, Grey Matters, and other resources Greg and I have mentioned previously, I have included the Stony Brook Mind/Brain Lecture Series. A yearly series, the most recent lecturer was Patricia Churchland, who spoke on “Decisions, Responsibilities, and the Brain.”

Please, if you know of other good video resources, leave a comment! I’ll keep adding them to the list.

Of course video of Patricia Churchland is also available on YouTube. Below I’ve included Part One from a three-part series. As she discusses research on brain science, belief and morality, she has a great set-up slide entitled “Brain Based Values” which announces “Evolution sets the brain’s style of drives and emotions” AND “Experience in a culture shapes the style into specific habits and preferences using the reward system.”

As regular readers will know, those are two great statements, BUT the proof is in the pudding, the devil in the details: good use of evolutionary theory, sophisticated understanding of subjective experience, effective use of the culture concept, an embodied approach to habits, and a more open and distributed view of the “reward system” than is normal in neuroscience. Does Churchland accomplish these things? I’ll let you decide.

But I will say that it is a perilous leap from “is” to “ought”…

Invisible Wounds of War

The RAND Corporation has just published a new study on the psychological and physical traumas of serving in Iraq and of veterans returning home. It’s entitled Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery. Here’s the link to the press release, the summary statement, and the research highlights. You can also check out a round up on Iraq and trauma in my latest Wednesday collection.

The news release carries the title “One In Five Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Suffer from PTSD or Major Depression.” RAND estimates that these returning veterans will have direct and indirect costs of 6.2 billion dollars in the first two years after returning from deployment, to speak nothing of the distress and disruption felt by the servicemen and women and their families and friends. “If PTSD and depression go untreated or are under treated, there is a cascading set of consequences,” [study leader] Lisa Jaycox said. “Drug use, suicide, marital problems and unemployment are some of the consequences. There will be a bigger societal impact if these service members go untreated. The consequences are not good for the individuals or society in general.”

“We need to remove the institutional cultural barriers that discourage soldiers from seeking care,” Terri Tanielian said. “Just because someone is getting mental health care does not mean that they are not able to do their job. Seeking mental health treatment should be seen as a sign of strength and interest in getting better, not a weakness. People need to get help as early as possible, not only once their symptoms become severe and disabling.”

One of their major conclusions: “Improving access to high-quality care can be cost-effective and improve recovery rates.” The emphasis is on high-quality, something that reaches out to veterans and their families, and that is supported by evidence and not simply a feel-good budget moment.