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POPSIs Intelligence Sexy? <<<Many traits in many species have evolved through sexual selection specifically to function as fitness indicators that reveal good genes and good health. Sexually selected fitness indicators typically show (1) higher coefficients of phenotypic and genetic variation than survival traits, (2) at least moderate genetic heritabilities and (3) positive correlations with many aspects of an animal's general condition, including body size, body symmetry, parasite resistance, longevity and freedom from deleterious mutations. These diagnostic criteria also appear to describe human intelligence (the g factor).>>> (from abstract). So then, is there some sort of mirror neuron circuitry in the brain that excites a cortical g spot?
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POPSThe Reassurance of Magic A very straightforward polemic to chew over between the cornflakes and the coffee. (Certainly, almost anything is better than pop science).
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POPSMetaphors We Live By A short step whence to seeing all language as metaphor and metaphor as the meeting of the body and consciousness. Hard to stomach for right-angled rationalists, those who carry tablets of stone truths, number crunchers and those who live in a bricked-up mind. Spot the metaphors.
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POPSIs the Internet melting our brains? I start with Plato's critique of writing where he says that if we depend on writing, we will lose the ability to remember things. Our memory will become weak. And he also criticizes writing because the written text is not interactive in the way spoken communication is. He also says that written words are essentially shadows of the things they represent. They're not the thing itself. Of course we remember all this because Plato wrote it down -- the ultimate irony. We hear a thousand objections of this sort throughout history: Thoreau objecting to the telegraph, because even though it speeds things up, people won't have anything to say to one another. Then we have Samuel Morse, who invents the telegraph, objecting to the telephone because nothing important is ever going to be done over the telephone because there's no way to preserve or record a phone conversation.
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POPSAnti-Science and Global Warming Interesting. Seems to imply that some people without any knowledge of science or any science training 'know' that smoking isn't bad for you etc. If a thousand cardiologists say you need a heart operation and ten scientists paid by a pharma company say you don't who'd you go for?
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POPSFDR: electric Power and Health Reform <<<The political anger was fierce and unrelenting at this and other Roosevelt initiatives. According to New Deal historian William Edward Leuchtenberg, one US Senator compared the President to the beast of the Apocalypse, "who sets his slimy mark on everything." One enraged citizen wrote to FDR, "If you were a good and honest man, Jesus Christ would not have crippled you." The REA public option survived the frenzy. By the time the juice reached our neighborhood, more than 90 percent of American farms were electrified, nearly all of them by rural electric coops. At the worst of the storm against Roosevelt's initiatives, it seemed there were no limits to incivility. >>>
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POPSFree Lectures and Courses... This was clipped some time ago by someone to whom I add thanks. Newer clippers may find it interesting. I've detailed the astronomy items as that is what I was searching for.
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POPSEver Wonder Where the RC Church gets its Money From? According to a BBC programme last night, the investments are in 'household names' that make millions from porn. Can't mention those names here, of course. When the collection plate next comes round, remember that blessed are the rich.
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POPSSex and Gender
In fact, behind your question is the fundamental problem of the degree to which behaviour is innate and to which it is acquired – an essential question that philosophers and scientists have been debating for centuries. This remains an ideologically-charged subject, which the media adore. Absolutely. The media often echo works that argue that cerebral specialisation differs between male and female. They say, for example, that language functions are undertaken by both hemispheres only in women’s brains. What do you say? The theories on the hemispheric differences between the sexes in language appeared over thirty years ago. They have not been confirmed by recent brain imaging studies which allow us to see the living brain at work. These theories are often based on observations carried out on very small samples – often a dozen people. People continue to quote these studies whereas contemporary scientific reality is very different. Meta-analyses, which draw conclusions from all the exp
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POPSGoodness! Evolution and the War between Fundamentalist Atheism and Religion This will settle nothing, but it is a good read. The clip is a 'taster'' of an article focused on debates around evoulution and moral motivation. It ends: <<< Of course, religion doesn’t have a monopoly on awe and inspiration. The story that science tells, the story of nature, is awesome, and some people get plenty of inspiration from it, without needing the religious kind. What’s more, science has its own role to play in knitting the world together. The scientific enterprise has long been on the frontiers of international community, fostering an inclusive, cosmopolitan ethic — the kind of ethic that any religion worthy of this moment in history must also foster. William James said that religious belief is “the belief that there is an unseen order, and that our supreme good lies in harmoniously adjusting ourselves thereto.” Science has its own version of the unseen order, the laws of nature. In principle, the two kinds of order can themselves be put into harmony ...(more follows)
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POPSWhat Your Choice of Words Reveals about You Interesting. Quite short article but difficult to encapsulate in a clip. The article refers mainly to political rhetoric and to observing medicalised patients over time. It does not factor in emotional lability which often removes the degree of conscious control over expression.
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POPSWhat's Your Basic Metaphor? Something to chew on then digest. <<< 6. An individual's use of metaphor has a coherent logic that is consistent over time. 7. Once a person settles on a particular metaphorical perspective there are logical consequences that follow, and result in behaviour that is consistent with the metaphor.>>> Btw, if you're not quite sure what a metaphor is, well, it's like a simile...
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POPSThe Clitoris: the little man in a woman's head What a turn on. <<<Electrical clitoral stimulation produced significant activations predominantly in bilaterally prefrontal areas (BA 6, 8 and 45), the precentral, parietal and postcentral gyri, including S1 (BA 2 and 3; 40–70% probability) and S2 (BA 43 and ventral BA 40, 30–60% probability). In addition, distributed activations were also seen in the anterior and posterior parts of the insula and the putamen.>>>
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POPSA Psychiatrist on Why Bipolar Disorder May be a Source of Humour This from the brilliant Blue to Blue blog by a practising psychiatrist in response to comments yesterday over her or merriment over the Onion's item on Obama's 'mood disorder'. It is one that I find I can accept and pretty close to my own CM comments this week. Anyway, it is good that the issue has been raised, and certainly an opportunity for others to visit this (often hilarious) blog.
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