August 2008 Archives

Fortune favours the brave; but the brave are motivated by favours of another kind - Times Online

From the heroic 300 Spartans of Thermopylae to the Charge of the Light Brigade, history is littered with tales of the bravery of men who knew that death was as likely an outcome as glory.

Such courage has always been recognised as a supreme asset by military strategists -- Carl von Clausewitz, the 19th-century Prussian theorist, described it as "above all things . . . the first quality of a warrior". For biologists, however, it poses a problem: humans simply should not have evolved to be heroic: the dangers to life and limb are too great.

Now, it appears, the solution to this evolutionary puzzle may lie in sex. New research suggests that braver soldiers may ultimately win more sexual partners as well as more battles, and that the extra chances to spread their genes can outweigh the risk of dying in combat.

A Teacher on the Front Line as Faith and Science Clash by Amy Harmon -NYTimes

ORANGE PARK, Fla. -- David Campbell switched on the overhead projector and wrote "Evolution" in the rectangle of light on the screen.

He scanned the faces of the sophomores in his Biology I class. Many of them, he knew from years of teaching high school in this Jacksonville suburb, had been raised to take the biblical creation story as fact. His gaze rested for a moment on Bryce Haas, a football player who attended the 6 a.m. prayer meetings of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes in the school gymnasium.

"If I do this wrong," Mr. Campbell remembers thinking on that humid spring morning, "I'll lose him."

Free Will vs. the Programmed Brain: Scientific American

In a clever new study, psychologists Kathleen Vohs at the University of Minnesota and Jonathan Schooler at the University of California at Santa Barbara tested this question by giving participants passages from The Astonishing Hypothesis, a popular science book by Francis Crick, a biochemist and Nobel laureate (as co-discoverer, with James Watson, of the DNA double helix). Half of the participants got a passage saying that there is no such thing as free will. The passage begins as follows: "'You,' your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. Who you are is nothing but a pack of neurons."

The passage then goes on to talk about the neural basis of decisions and claims that "...although we appear to have free will, in fact, our choices have already been predetermined for us and we cannot change that." The other participants got a passage that was similarly scientific-sounding, but it was about the importance of studying consciousness, with no mention of free will.

Why Symmetry Predicts Bodily Attractiveness -- ScienceDaily

"It seems that because bodily asymmetries are too subtle to be seen with the naked eye, evolution has instead engineered more conspicuous signals and displays, such as broad shoulders, curvy waist lines or smooth dance moves to indicate mate quality."

Finding Morals Under Empty Heavens
By Christopher Hitchens -science-spirit.org

...We can all think of right actions performed by people who claim to be actuated by faith (just as we can all think of vile and cruel things done for the announced self-same motive). If I take my own case, I am not overwhelmed by the number of selfless or good things that I have done. But, when I can reflect on them, I have little difficulty explaining my motive. I do not hope for a heavenly reward and I am not afraid of divine punishment (and do not regard either of those inducements as moral). But I do hope to gain satisfaction for myself, and I do hope to benefit from others who are willing to do the same. My favorite example is donating blood, which I do not do with sufficient regularity. But I positively enjoy doing it. I do not lose a pint, but someone else gains one. And, when I too need blood one day (and I have a very rare blood group), I can be fairly sure that someone will have anonymously done the same for me. This is not strenuous, but not without its beauty and symmetry.

Daniel Dennett's Darwinian Mind: An Interview with a 'Dangerous' Man by Chris Floyd -science-spirit.org

The outspoken philosopher of science distills his rigorous conceptions of consciousness, and aims withering fire at the dialogue between science and religion.

In matters of the mind--the exploration of consciousness, its correlation with the body, its evolutionary foundations, and the possibilities of its creation through computer technology--few voices today speak as boldly as that of philosopher Daniel Dennett. His best-selling works--among them Consciousness Explained and Darwin's Dangerous Idea--have provoked fierce debates with their rigorous arguments, eloquent polemic and witty, no-holds-barred approach to intellectual combat. He is often ranked alongside Richard Dawkins as one of the most powerful--and, in some circles, feared--proponents of thorough-going Darwinism.

Do Subatomic Particles Have Free Will? --Science News

Human free will might seem like the squishiest of philosophical subjects, way beyond the realm of mathematical demonstration. But two highly regarded Princeton mathematicians, John Conway and Simon Kochen, claim to have proven that if humans have even the tiniest amount of free will, then atoms themselves must also behave unpredictably.

Optimism in Evolution
By Olivia Judson -NY Times

When the dog days of summer come to an end, one thing we can be sure of is that the school year that follows will see more fights over the teaching of evolution and whether intelligent design, or even Biblical accounts of creation, have a place in America's science classrooms.

In these arguments, evolution is treated as an abstract subject that deals with the age of the earth or how fish first flopped onto land. It's discussed as though it were an optional, quaint and largely irrelevant part of biology. And a common consequence of the arguments is that evolution gets dropped from the curriculum entirely.

Infant Transplant Procedure Ignites Debate
Ethicists Question Strategy in Which Hearts Are Removed Minutes After They Stop Beating
By Rob Stein -Washington Post

Surgeons in Denver are publishing their first account of a procedure in which they remove the hearts of severely brain-damaged newborns less than two minutes after the babies are disconnected from life support, and their hearts stop beating, so the organs can be transplanted into infants who would otherwise die.

The Boundaries of Organ Donation after Circulatory Death
The New England Journal of Medicine

In the August 14, 2008 issue of the Journal, Boucek et al. report on three cases of heart transplantation from infants who were pronounced dead on the basis of cardiac criteria. Moderator Atul Gawande, of Harvard Medical School; George Annas, of the Boston University School of Public Health; Arthur Caplan, of the University of Pennsylvania; and Robert Truog, of Harvard Medical School discuss key ethical aspects of organ donation after cardiac death.

Perspective Roundtable: Organ Donation after Cardiac Death (Flash Video)
1. Introduction
2. Criteria for Death
3. Dying vs. Dead
4. Rethinking the Dead Donor Rule
5. Public Trust
6. Consent and Prognosis
7. Conclusions

Robot Has Biological Brain
By LiveScience Staff

Scientists have created a robot controlled by a biological brain made of rat neurons.

The robot, named Gordon, is not exactly an Einstein but represents a remarkable bridging of the gap between biology and technology. Gordon relies a dish with about 60 electrodes to pick up electrical signals generated by the brain cells.

Bring Clarity to Writing | ThinkSimpleNow.com

Have you ever read an email from someone that was too wordy, lacked focus, and left you confused? How can we learn from reading such emails to improve our own communication? How do we compose emails and writings that others will actually want to read?

The ability to write clearly is crucial to getting your message across no matter what you're writing, whether it's an email, a blog post, a magazine article, or a letter to a friend. Clear and concise writing is vital to having your words read and understood.

How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science - Chronicle.com

Success in the sciences unquestionably takes a lot of hard work, sustained over many years. Students usually have to catch the science bug in grade school and stick with it to develop the competencies in math and the mastery of complex theories they need to progress up the ladder. Those who succeed at the level where they can eventually pursue graduate degrees must have not only abundant intellectual talent but also a powerful interest in sticking to a long course of cumulative study. A century ago, Max Weber wrote of "Science as a Vocation," and, indeed, students need to feel something like a calling for science to surmount the numerous obstacles on the way to an advanced degree.

At least on the emotional level, contemporary American education sides with the obstacles. It begins by treating children as psychologically fragile beings who will fail to learn -- and worse, fail to develop as "whole persons" -- if not constantly praised. The self-esteem movement may have its merits, but preparing students for arduous intellectual ascents aren't among them. What the movement most commonly yields is a surfeit of college freshmen who "feel good" about themselves for no discernible reason and who grossly overrate their meager attainments.

Why Islam Is Unfunny for a Cartoonist -By Andrew Higgins - WSJ.com

The arrest of a controversial Dutch cartoonist has set off a wave of protests. The case is raising questions for a changing Europe about free speech, religion and art.

On a sunny May morning, six plainclothes police officers, two uniformed policemen and a trio of functionaries from the state prosecutor's office closed in on a small apartment in Amsterdam. Their quarry: a skinny Dutch cartoonist with a rude sense of humor. Informed that he was suspected of sketching offensive drawings of Muslims and other minorities, the Dutchman surrendered without a struggle.

Midnight in the Kindergarten of Good and Evil -- Asia Times Online

Is morality possible without religion? Since German philosopher Immanuel Kant offered a "what-if-everybody-did" rule in 1788, modern philosophers have cracked their skulls against the problem without success. Kant's rule requires you to tell the truth at all times, for example, when a pederast inquires as to your child's route home from grade school. It was not a popular idea.

The World of Web Trolling - NYTimes.com

In the late 1980s, Internet users adopted the word "troll" to denote someone who intentionally disrupts online communities. Early trolling was relatively innocuous, taking place inside of small, single-topic Usenet groups. The trolls employed what the M.I.T. professor Judith Donath calls a "pseudo-naïve" tactic, asking stupid questions and seeing who would rise to the bait. The game was to find out who would see through this stereotypical newbie behavior, and who would fall for it. As one guide to trolldom puts it, "If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it."