Categories
psychology

psychoactive salad

Over at The Straight Dope, a reader writes:

Various health and yoga websites claim that iceberg lettuce contains chemicals similar to laudanum, morphine, or other opiates. There are also reports of people being admitted to hospitals after injecting themselves with lettuce extracts, and papers about smoking lettuce. I have found no information about the chemical constitution of lettuce that mentions morphine or opiates. Are there such things in supermarket lettuce? –Curious Lettuce Eater, via e-mail

Cecil replies:

You’re thinking: How can iceberg lettuce be a drug? It barely qualifies as a food. Little do you know. While the stuff from the supermarket isn’t likely to do much, lettuce generally speaking does contain psychoactive compounds. Enough to get you high? Hard to say. Judging from available evidence, the stuff might do nothing, give you a buzz, or kill you. Here’s what we know:

Read the rest at The Straight Dope

Categories
links

Links for 6th of Jan

Categories
politics

mocking empire

Rose gave me Arundhati Roy’s new book of essays for Christmas (thanks Rose!). I liked this bit:

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness–and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling–their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.

Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.
(found here)

And speaking of mocking empire, here’s a good example:

Compare: www.godhatesfags.com

With: www.godhatesfigs.com

Hilarious

Categories
quotes

Quote #79

Papua New Guinea tribesman to explorer Bruce Parry:

I don’t know where your tribe is, but it must be rubbish. You can’t do anything. You wear these funny clothes, you can’t climb trees, and you don’t know the flora and fauna. Wherever it is you come from, it is obviously crap

Oh the joys of a clash of cultures. Reminds me of mongogo nuts

Categories
politics

engaged for 2005

The ringing calls to opposition on the part of the readers of small left-wing magazines do not impress me, nor do I believe that America is secretly a left-wing country that is simply awaiting the clarion call. That was a Ralph Nader and Howard Dean fantasy, and there?s no evidence for it. That?s why I don?t think the lesson to learn from Kerry?s defeat is that he should have been more left-wing.

I agree with Colin Greer about being oppositional, but it has to be oppositional in a way that?s persuasive to Americans. My belief is that getting out of the sealed rooms and gated communities of the left and doing politics with people who are unlike you is to participate in the essence of politics.

(via OpenDemocracy.net, via Dan)

Categories
links

The Ten Thousand Things

Here’s a list of some of the bookmarks I made in 2004, meaning to read them but never quite got round to doing so. Collectively I call them The Ten Thousand Things. No guarentees of quality…

BBC – Science & Nature – Articles – Flocks, herds, swarms and schools

Iain Couzin homepage

:: Douglas Rushkoff – Weblog ::

NATMAPreport.pdf (application/pdf Object)

http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wegner/seed.htm

Majikthise : Gratitude journals and Loewenstein’s challenge

Visualize The Wiki

Edge: A SELF WORTH HAVING: A Talk with Nicholas Humphrey

Society of the Spectacle

Demos – Catalogue – Network Logic

The Loom: The Unwritten Self

The Shape of Days: The Ryugyong Hotel

Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Yo-yo world of share price values

Chomsky vs Foucault

MSN Slate Magazine

Changing minds and persuasion — How we change what others think, believe, feel and do

Daedalus, or, Science and the Future
Categories
quotes

Quote #77

All change is the consequence of the purposeless collapse of energy and matter into disorder

– overheard on an ‘In Our Time’ about the second law of thermodynamics

Categories
events

Child of Our Time 2005

A year in the making, the BBC documentary I worked on for a lot of 2004 Child Of Our Time is due to be shown in January. It will show on BBC1 at 9pm, on the four tuesdays of that month; the 4th, the 11th, the 18th and the 25th of Jan. You can see a transmission card here

Categories
quotes

The Spotless Mind

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d;

From Alexander Pope’s Eloisa To Abelard
(and, of course, the film Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind)

Categories
psychology

The Tangled Wing

The second edition of Melvin Konner’s The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit is reviewed here and the book has a website, here which includes the notes Konner used to write the book (yay!) and his afterword about the dangers of sociobiology

The contents of this book are known to be dangerous.

I do not mean that in the sense that all ideas are potentially dangerous. Specifically, ideas about the biological basis of behavior have encouraged political tendencies and movements later regretted by all decent people and condemned in school histories. Why, then, purvey such ideas?

Because some ideas in behavioral biology are true?among them, to the best of my knowledge, the ones in this book?and the truth is essential to wise action. But that does not mean that these ideas cannot be distorted, nor that evil acts cannot arise from them. I doubt, in fact, that what I say can prevent such distortion. Political and social movements arise from worldly causes, and then seize whatever congenial ideas are at hand. Nonetheless, I am not comfortable in the company of scientists who are content to search for the truth and let the consequences accumulate as they may. I therefore recount here a few passages in the dismal, indeed shameful history of the abuse of behavioral biology, in some of which scientists were willing participants.

(read more)

Categories
quotes

Lynn’s favourite poem

Presentiment is that long shadow of the lawn
Indicative that suns go down;
The notice to the startled grass
The darkness is about to pass.

– Emily Dickinson

Categories
links

Links for 14th of December 2004

Categories
links

mikedewar.org/blog

Welcome to the world of blogging to my good friend Mike over at mikedewar.org. Currently he says ‘notes of a confused, hypercaffinated PhD student’, you’ll find some complex system theory in amongst there too.

Categories
events

envioustime.co.uk

My website of my photographer friend Andy is now finished…The glorious envioustime.co.uk…Visit now to see many fantastic photos.

Categories
quotes

Anyone for philosophy of science?

Feynmann said (according to New Scientist)

Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds

Which makes me think – Lucky old Feynmann, a scientist to whom science was obviously as natural as walking. For myself, I’d like all the help i can get to recognise and perform good scientific work

Categories
quotes

The Dawn of Wonder

There’s an interesting discussion happening over at helmintholog about the evolution of foresight/insight…It reminded me of Melvin Konner’s The Tangled Wing (which has just had a second, revised, edition published – very exciting). The last section of The Tangled Wing contains the following, in a section headed “The Dawn of Wonder”:

One of the most fascinating and least discussed discoveries in the study of the wild chimpanzees was described in a short paper by Harold Bauer. He was following a well-known male through the forest of the Gombe Stream Reserve in Tanzania when the animal stopped beside a waterfall. It seemed possible that he had deliberately gone to the waterfall rather than passing it incidentally, but that was not absolutely clear. In any case, it was an impressive spot: a stream of water cascading down from a twenty-five-foot height, about a mile from the lake, thundering into the pool below and casting mist for sixty or seventy feet; a stunning sight to come upon in the midst of a tropical forest.

The animal seemed lost in contemplation of it. He moved slowly closer and began to rock, while beginning to give a characteristic round of “pant-hoot” calls. He became more excited, and finally began to run back and forth while calling, to jump, to call louder, to drum with his fists on trees, to run back again. The behavior resembled that observed by Jane Goodall in groups of chimps at the start of a rainstorm–the “rain dance,” as it has been called. But this was one animal alone, and not surprised as the animals are by sudden rain–even if he had not deliberately sought the waterfall out, he certainly knew where it was and when he would come upon it.

He continued this activity long enough so that it seemed to merit some explanation, and he did it again in the same place on other days. Other animals were observed to do it as well. They had no practical interest in the waterfall. The animals did not have to drink from the stream or cross it in that vicinity. To the extent that it might be dangerous, it could be easily avoided, and certainly did not interest every animal. But for these it was something they had to look at, return to, study, watch, become excited about: a thing of beauty, an object of curiosity, a challenge, a fetish, an imagined creature, a god? We will never know.

But for a very similar animal, perhaps five million years ago, in the earliest infancy of the human spirit, something in the natural world must have evoked a response like this one–a waterfall, a mountain vista, a sunset, the crater of a volcano, the edge of the sea–something that stopped it in its tracks and made it watch, and move, and watch, and turn, and watch again; something that made it return to the spot, though nothing gainful could take place there, no feeding, drinking, reproducing, sleeping, fighting, fleeing, nothing animal. In just such a response, in just such a moment, in just such an animal, we may, I think, be permitted to guess, occurred the dawn of awe, of sacred attentiveness, of wonder.

Categories
quotes

Fwd: Reality of a heavy thinker

It started out innocently enough. I began to think at parties now and then — to loosen up.

Inevitably, though, one thought led to another, and soon I was more than just a social thinker.

I began to think alone — “to relax,” I told myself — but I knew it wasn’t true.

Thinking became more and more important to me, and finally I was thinking all the time.

That was when things began to sour at home.

One evening I had turned off the TV and asked my wife about the meaning of life.

She spent that night at her mother’s.

I began to think on the job.

I knew that thinking and employment don’t mix, but I couldn’t stop myself.

I began to avoid friends at lunchtime so I could read Thoreau and Kafka.

I would return to the office dizzied and confused, asking, “What is it exactly we are doing here?”

One day the boss called me in.

He said, “Listen, I like you, and it hurts me to say this, but your thinking has become a real problem. If you don’t stop thinking on the job, you’ll have to find another job.”

This gave me a lot to think about.

I came home early after my conversation with the boss.

“Honey,” I confessed, “I’ve been thinking…”

“I know you’ve been thinking,” she said, “and I want a divorce!”

“But Honey, surely it’s not that serious.”

“It is serious,” she said, lower lip aquiver. “You think as much as college professors, and college professors don’t make any money, so if you keep on thinking, we won’t have any money!”

“That’s a faulty syllogism,” I said impatiently.

She exploded in tears of rage and frustration, but I was in no mood to deal with the emotional drama.

“I’m going to the library,” I snarled as I stomped out the door.

I headed for the library, in the mood for some Nietzsche.

I roared into the parking lot with NPR on the radio and ran up to the big glass doors…

They didn’t open. The library was closed.

To this day, I believe that a Higher Power was looking out for me that night.

Leaning on the unfeeling glass, whimpering for Zarathustra, a poster caught my eye.

“Friend, is heavy thinking ruining your life?” it asked.

You probably recognize that line.

It comes from the standard Thinker’s Anonymous poster.

Which is why I am what I am today: a recovering thinker.

I never miss a TA meeting.

At each meeting we watch a non-educational video; last week it was “Porky’s.”

Then we share experiences about how we avoided thinking since the last meeting.

I still have my job, and things are a lot better at home.

Life just seemed…easier, somehow, as soon as I stopped thinking.

I think the road to recovery is nearly complete for me.

Today, I registered to vote as a Republican…

Categories
links

links for 7th of December 2004

Categories
politics

Lobbying Time!

Now this is important stuff. On 2nd of December the Private Members Ballot was drawn in parliament. Twenty randomly selected MPs get to introduce a bill of their own choosing. Following last thursdays’ draw the MPs in question get a few weeks to think over what bill they would like to introduce. You can see the list here and, it goes without saying, now is prime lobbying time for any particular bit of democratic change that you would like to become law. I’m suggesting you support the Local Services and Facilities Bill, which will give protection to local economies and communities. You can read about it here and the evential aim of the Local Works campaign, the Sustainable Communities Bill.

So, if you live in one of the constituencies which has an MP on the ballot (check now) you should write to them. For the good of democracy you should probably write to them whether or not you want to support the Local Services and Facilities Bill (although of course i’d be nice if you did). If you want to support the bill but don’t have a balloted MP, the Local Works campaign have a list of the 7 MPs most likely to adopt the bill, so we can write to them anyway encouraging them to do the Good Thing. (and that list coming soon, once i’ve got it).

Categories
events

placebo booze

Well done Cat, for getting her letter printed in the Guardian this weekend. Reprinted here for your enjoyment:

Intrigued by your experiment where Brits got “pissed” on placebos (Under The Influence, November 20), I decided to try it with my housemates. The plan: we would match each other drink for drink, except every other drink of mine would be water. After four drinks, the vote was tied as to who was the most drunk. After eight, Kevin was declared the drunkest. Conclusions: I can drink half as much and still have a good time. More interesting, however, was that voluntary abstinence provokes a strange response – many expressed sympathy that I was the one who “had” to drink less. It seems we all want to encourage each other to get as drunk as we would like to, perhaps so we don’t have to feel guilty about the amount we all drink. Advertisers aren’t the only ones who want us to drink to excess.
Cat Bardsley
Sheffield

Categories
politics

Supermarket Sweep

These days, ?1 in every ?8 we spend goes to Tesco. The company sells more DVDs than HMV, more shampoo than Boots, and its ?4 jeans outsell Levis, Wrangler and Gap put together. Last month, eight pairs were sold every minute.

These are the figures Tesco wants us to remember, but there are other, less palatable statistics. For every ?1 spent on bananas at Tesco, for instance, only 1p goes back to the plantation growers in developing countries – far less than they need to feed their families. An estimated 40p goes to Tesco. Indeed, the company makes a profit of ?1m per week purely from the sale of bananas – enough to employ 30,000 plantation workers full-time and pay them a proper wage.

It is estimated that, every time a supermarket is built, 276 jobs are lost. Between 1976 and 1989 (the dark days of unbridled supermarket expansion), 44,000 food shops and grocers went bust; when a large supermarket opens, according to ethical watchdog Corporate Watch, it results in the closure of every village shop within seven miles.

From Loaded! Why supermarkets are getting richer and richer (Observer, January 25th 2004). Thanks to Dan for the link.

Categories
events

Mind Hacks is here, so is mindhacks.com

Mind Hacks is here, in real paper and ink:

You may have noticed a bit of a lack of cog neuro blogging here at idiolect.org.uk, well it’s been because i’ve been saving my thoughts for www.mindhacks.com. From now on if it’s about cognitive psychology or neuroscience it’ll probably end up there – I hope you can come along and join us for what should be a whole world of psychology-design-neuroscience-technology fun…!

Categories
events

saturday the 4th

If you are in london at the weekend, go to the ICA debate on cults which features Jon Ronson, and has Andrew Brown chairing.

If you are in Sheffield at the weekend, come to the benefit gig The Burton Street Project,
57 Burton Street, Hillsborough. It’s ?7/?5 which goes to The Medical Foundation Caring for Victims of Torture and you get ‘an evening of Latin-American music, with Sally Doherty and her Latin Quartet, Hot food (with a Latin-American flavour!), and a licensed bar’ (behind which i will be serving).

Categories
psychology

the ideal christmas presents, for monkeys

My friend Stephen sends me this by email, saying:

‘… it turns out that Psychology CAN sometimes be interesting – who would have thought it?

Searching for inspiration about toys that are “gender neutral” for use in Theory of Mind stories today, I came across the abstract below. It seems that some researchers got a grant to give toys to a bunch of monkeys and see which ones the boy monkeys liked and which ones the girl monkeys liked. It turned out that the boy monkeys preferred the stereotypical boy-toys (a car and ball) and the girl monkeys preferred the stereotypical girl-toys (a doll and a pot), which is one in the eye for theories that say boys and girls are only different because we socialise them that way.

P.S. Is it just me, or is anything that involves monkeys (even when it’s
psychology) inherently brilliant.’

And the paper is:

Title: Sex differences in response to children’s toys in nonhuman primates (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus)
Author(s): Alexander GM, Hines M
Source: EVOLUTION AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR 23 (6): 467-479 NOV 2002
Abstract: Sex differences in children’s toy preferences are thought by many to arise from gender socialization. However, evidence from patients with endocrine disorders suggests that biological factors during early development (e.g., levels of androgens) are influential. In this study, we found that vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops sabaeus) show sex differences in toy preferences similar to those documented previously in children. The percent of contact time with toys typically preferred by boys (a car and a ball) was greater in male vervets (n=33) than in female vervets (n=30) (P<.05), whereas the percent of contact time with toys typically preferred by girls (a doll and a pot) was greater in female vervets than in male vervets (P<.01). In contrast, contact time with toys preferred equally by boys and girls (a picture book and a stuffed dog) was comparable in male and female vervets. The results suggest that sexually differentiated object preferences arose early in human evolution, prior to the emergence of a distinct hominid lineage. This implies that sexually dimorphic preferences for features (e.g., color, shape, movement) may have evolved from differential selection pressures based on the different behavioral roles of males and females, and that evolved object feature preferences may contribute to present day sexually dimorphic toy preferences in children.

I emailed him about blogging it and he said

‘After all, just because there might be something about stereotypical boy-toys that inclines boys towards them (and the same for girls with girl-toys) doesn’t mean we ought to encourage and reinforce gender differences through socialisation – I don’t want to promote some kind of wicked is-to-ought fallacy here!’

Categories
science

The Coriolis Effect

If i’ve got this right, the Coriolis Force is a correction physicists use when calculating equations of motion – it isn’t a real force but a factor used to correct for the relative shift in coordinate frames. While the standard (newtonian) laws of motion can predict, for example, where a cannonball will land if fired with a certain force in a certain direction, they don’t take account that, while the thing is in flight, the reference frame (ie where the earth below is) is changing. So, you have to add a correction in – the coriolis effect.

It’s not an insignificant effect – for example nineteenth century gunnery tables, which the navy used to calculate the direction and force of cannon fire, took into account the coriolis effect. When, in the first world war, the British navy fought a battle in the falklands they found all their shot landed 100 yards to the left. Their calculations took account of the coliolis effect, but only as it works in the northern hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere the effect is reversed (which is why the water goes the other way down the plug-hole) and so all the aim of the cannon was by a factor of twice the anticipated coliosis effect.

I hope i’ve got it right – i’m not a physicist, so apologies, I’m writing this from memory from an otherwise unremarkable lecture i went to last night – but, basically, how cool is that?

Categories
science

The evolution of the long-distance runner

In Nature, last week, a review of the role of long-distance running in the evolution of the human form. I guess the importance of endurance-based running in human evolution explains the popularity of jogging…

Endurance running and the evolution of Homo. Dennis M. Bramble & Daniel E. Lieberman. Nature 432, 345 – 352 (18 November 2004)
Abstract: Striding bipedalism is a key derived behaviour of hominids that possibly originated soon after the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages. Although bipedal gaits include walking and running, running is generally considered to have played no major role in human evolution because humans, like apes, are poor sprinters compared to most quadrupeds. Here we assess how well humans perform at sustained long-distance running, and review the physiological and anatomical bases of endurance running capabilities in humans and other mammals. Judged by several criteria, humans perform remarkably well at endurance running, thanks to a diverse array of features, many of which leave traces in the skeleton. The fossil evidence of these features suggests that endurance running is a derived capability of the genus Homo, originating about 2 million years ago, and may have been instrumental in the evolution of the human body form.

Quoting selectively, for your enjoyment…

The ER [Endurance Running] capabilities of Homo raise several additional questions, the first being whether long-distance running was an important behaviour in human evolution or merely the by-product of enhanced walking capabilities. Traditional arguments have favoured the latter hypothesis;

…

Yet walking alone cannot account for many of the other derived features in Table 1 because the mass-spring mechanics of running, which differ fundamentally from the pendular mechanics of walking, require structural specializations for energy storage and stabilization that have little role in walking

…

Considering all the evidence together, it is reasonable to hypothesize that Homo evolved to travel long distances by both walking and running.

…

ER may have helped hunters get close enough to throw projectiles, or perhaps even to run some mammals to exhaustion in the heat. Although such demanding strategies have been occasionally documented among modern foragers (see ref. 61), they might have been too energetically expensive and low-yield for the benefits to have outweighed the costs.

..

Another hypothesis to explore is that ER was initially useful for effective scavenging in the open, semi-arid environments apparently inhabited by early Homo. If early hominids were regularly scavenging marrow, brain and other tissues from carcasses, then ER would have helped hominids to compete more effectively for these scattered and ephemeral resources.

…

Today, ER is primarily a form of exercise and recreation, but its roots may be as ancient as the origin of the human genus, and its demands a major contributing factor to the human body form.

Categories
links

Links for 24th Nov 2004

Categories
psychology

My research interests

I’ve just updated my page on the Adaptive Behaviour Research Group webpages at the University of Sheffield (here). It seems that, like scars, i have accumulated a collection of interests within psychology. My A-level history teacher was right, I am an intellectual butterfly, flitting from topic to topc (I’m still hoping that she meant it in a nice way).

My (updated) research interests

  • The cognitive neuroscience of decisions; the interaction of cortical and subcortical sites of attentional and action selection; response selection in the stroop task
  • Learning theory approaches to attitude psychology
  • Social attitudes; social networks & social influence
  • Philosophy of science; especially the role(s) of computational modelling in psychology

    Currently, i am working with SUBR:IM (Sustainable Urban Brownfield Regenation: Integrated Management, www.subrim.org.uk) looking at residents’ perceptions of risk from pollution, feelings of trust in government behaviour and their desires for the long-term management of brownfield sites.

    • Categories
    psychology

    Why Susie Sells Seashells by the Seashore

    More attacks on the notion of deliberate agency. Again, emphasis in the abstract is mine. Looking at the data the effects are far larger than i expected them to be (but i expected them to be pretty small)

    Makes me wonder if my motives for liking Sheffield are anything to do with my surname (but not for long).

    Why Susie Sells Seashells by the Seashore: Implicit Egotism and Major Life Decisions

    Brett W. Pelham, Matthew C. Mirenberg, and John T. Jones

    Because most people possess positive associations about themselves, most people prefer things that are connected to the self (e.g., the letters in one?s name). The authors refer to such preferences as implicit egotism. Ten studies assessed the role of implicit egotism in 2 major life decisions: where people choose to live and what people choose to do for a living. Studies 1?5 showed that people are disproportionately likely to live in places whose names resemble their own first or last names (e.g., people named Louis are disproportionately likely to live in St. Louis). Study 6 extended this finding to birthday number preferences. People were disproportionately likely to live in cities whose names began with their birthday numbers (e.g., Two Harbors, MN). Studies 7?10 suggested that people disproportionately choose careers whose labels resemble their names (e.g., people named Dennis or Denise are overrepresented among dentists). Implicit egotism appears to influence major life decisions. This idea stands in sharp contrast to many models of rational choice and attests to the importance of understanding implicit beliefs.

    Categories
    psychology

    different languages, different dyslexias

    Readers of Chinese use different parts of the brain from readers of English, write Brian Butterworth and Joey Tang

    This guardian article is interesting in it’s own right – different phonological and visuo-spatial requirements of reading english vs reading chinese, ‘Chinese dyslexia may be caused by a different genetic anomaly than English dyslexia’, etc – and also because it is an example of two scientists turning their research into popular news form themselves – bravo them and bravo the guardian for letting them do it.