Category: general

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

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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.”

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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.

Perception and Politics

Do we really know what’s going on? Or do we just see what we want to see?

The Data

Larry Bartels, director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton, has an op-ed Who’s Bitter Now? which shows us a stereotype of rural voters in action. His argument? “Small-town people of modest means and limited education are not fixated on cultural issues. Rather, it is affluent, college-educated people living in cities and suburbs who are most exercised by guns and religion. In contemporary American politics, social issues are the opiate of the elites.”

Bartels sets out to actually define the “small-town working class,” making less than $60,000, living in small towns or rural areas, never graduated from college. He compares them to cosmopolitan voters, college graduates who live in the suburbs or cities making $60,000 or more. The first group makes up about 16 percent of voters, the second 13 percent.

Small-town, working-class people are more likely than their cosmopolitan counterparts, not less, to say they trust the government to do what’s right. In the 2004 National Election Study conducted by the University of Michigan, 54 percent of these people said that the government in Washington can be trusted to do what is right most of the time or just about always. Only 38 percent of cosmopolitan people expressed a similar level of trust in the federal government.

Do small-town, working-class voters cast ballots on the basis of social issues? Yes, but less than other voters do. Among these voters, those who are anti-abortion were only 6 percentage points more likely than those who favor abortion rights to vote for President Bush in 2004. The corresponding difference for the rest of the electorate was 27 points, and for cosmopolitan voters it was a remarkable 58 points. Similarly, the votes cast by the cosmopolitan crowd in 2004 were much more likely to reflect voters’ positions on gun control and gay marriage.

Bartels finishes by telling us the larger pattern behind it all. “It is true that American voters attach significantly more weight to social issues than they did 20 years ago. It is also true that church attendance has become a stronger predictor of voting behavior. But both of those changes are concentrated primarily among people who are affluent and well educated, not among the working class.”

The Interpretation

So why the problem in perception? Is it because he clings to a stereotype, as Bartels seems to suggest?

Nicholas Kristof’s column today, Divided They Fall, offers us better than a yes/no. He wants to take on “how our biases shape our understanding of reality.” Of course the candidate you favor won the debate last time… Or did he or she?

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Microtargeting or Macrotargeting? On Politics and Culture

What’s for Dinner? The Pollster Wants to Know sets out a basic anthropological argument—people’s behaviors and traits are not isolated, discrete units, easily analyzed as individual phenomenon. They are linked, interconnected, patterned.

As Kim Severson opens, “If there’s butter and white wine in your refrigerator and Fig Newtons in the cookie jar, you’re likely to vote for Hillary Clinton. Prefer olive oil, Bear Naked granola and a latte to go? You probably like Barack Obama, too. And if you’re leaning toward John McCain, it’s all about kicking back with a bourbon and a stuffed crust pizza while you watch the Democrats fight it out next week in Pennsylvania.”

Voting patterns are linked to eating patterns. Any wonder politicians are always stuffing down the local “delicacies”?

Severson’s article then goes onto discuss microtargeting: “The idea is that in the brand-driven United States, what we buy and how we spend our free time is a good predictor of our politics. Political strategists slice and dice the electorate into small segments, starting with traditional demographics like age and income, then mixing consumer information like whether you prefer casinos or cruises, hunting or cooking, a Prius or a pickup. Once they find small groups of like-minded people, campaigns can efficiently send customized phone, e-mail or direct mail messages to potential supporters, avoiding inefficient one-size-fits-all mailings.”

Karl Rove, President Bush’s ex-adviser, and Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton’s ex-adviser, both practiced microtargeting, looking for those wedge issues. And indeed, that captures one part of the story about everyday life. Local context, social relationships, like-minded people, that’s a powerful way to think about culture. Republicans tend to drink Dr. Pepper, Democrats go for Pepsi.

But Coca-Cola is the American brand, recognized the world around. And Obama’s campaign is aiming for this sort of “macrotargeting.” “The idea is to build a unified, all-encompassing Obama brand that works well across all kinds of media platforms. ‘I would say we’re old-fashioned in that you have to look at America as a whole,’ said Bill Burton, Mr. Obama’s national press secretary.” The larger patterns, the things that unify people across lines of class and gender and race, that’s another powerful way to think about culture too.

Generally these patterns of culture are harder to recognize—people pick up on the daily wedge issues, on the things that make us different. Most social science research is built on this approach. But as Robert LeVine argues in his classic Properties of Culture, this focus on individual variation generally comes at the expense of understanding consensus.

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Why Obama Won Last Night

Today op-ed writers and bloggers alike are going critical on Obama’s performance in last night’s debate.  Like teenagers on OMG (Oh My God!), they say things like, “Like, did you hear what Obama said in the middle?” and “OMG, Hillary had the best put down.”

A basic dictum in anthropology, and much of life, is to pay attention to both what people say and what people do.  And the doing often matters much more.  But today’s critics are all focused on the message, not the medium or even the meta-message.  From the perspective of this neuroanthropologist, Obama won.  Here’s why.

Let’s talk medium.  A nationally televised debate.  And in this debate it is the performance that matters as much as the words said.  Last night for the first time Obama acted presidential, not just inspirational.  “The buck stops here”–that was the most significant moment of the debate.  People want leadership from a president.  Obama showed himself ready.

The whole debate format backed that up, reinforcing a clear but largely unconscious conclusion.  For the first time Clinton said Obama was presidential.  The moderators defered to Obama, even with their challenging follow-up questions–reporters after a leader.  Remember the moderator comment, apologizing to Clinton for Obama speaking more?  All Clinton could comment was, “I noticed.”

In the primate world an avoidant gaze is a mark of submission.  Clinton, time and again, had her eyes wandering around the crowd.  Obama looked directly at the moderators or at the cameras.  The implicit message?  Here’s the leader.

And the meta-message?  Whatever the policy debates and the snipping over verbal gaffes and significant others (OMG! they know people!), Obama had the clearer meta-message.  We need change.  We need to address the broad problems facing all of us.  We need to get past politics as usual.

Why is this important?  Obama, in responding to criticisms, consistently and clearly came back to his meta message, his unifying theme.  Clinton came off as defensive in her meta-message–But I have experience, But I’ve been vetted by Republican attacks.  It was not about leadership.  And it was dispersed, rather than focused.  Focus matters.

What about those spontaneous moments?  Applause, muted and quickly cut off, came for Obama.  People heard that, in the room and on television.  People saw the two candidates’ eyes.  People followed not just the questions, but how the reporters acted.  People got the take-home meta-message.  Context, interactions, behaviors–Obama acted like a winner in a convincing way reinforced by those around him.

Do I agree with all his words?  I don’t know.  I don’t even remember them all.  But I know what I saw.