November 23rd, 2009

The End of Humanity-No gods or guns required

If you only listen to politicians or prophets, the end of the world will come about dramatically, and according to many, soon. We are told to expect either wars in the heavens with gods battling gods over the fate of humanity or wars between nations involving nuclear weapons and mad men pushing the button.

Humans love drama. We also have an exaggerated notion of our importance to the universe. We cannot imagine the demise of humanity without a world-wide melodrama worthy of the best CGI artists in Hollywood. We simply cannot accept that humans could face extinction because bats disappeared first. Yet when you consider that all living systems on this planet are highly interdependent it’s a conclusion that is suddenly not very far-fetched.

Humans do not exist on Earth in isolation. We depend on the planet and our fellow creatures to provide what we need to survive. Strip the planet of all other living things and how long do you imagine humans could survive? A year, a month, a week? We’d have no food, no protection from the elements, no fresh air, none of the necessities of life. Over 90% of all the species that have ever existed are now extinct. What grand egotism leads us to believe we are exempt from the same natural processes?

It has only been in the last 100 years or so that we’ve had the scientific tools that permit us to examine the interconnections between us and all the other species with whom we share this isolated rock. In many cases we are just now beginning to learn how we all help each other survive. We are finding previously unsuspected dependencies between widely diverse groups of organisms, dependencies vital to our survival as a species. We are beginning to understand that the loss of one species in the chain of life can have drastic implications on the continued survival of other species thousands of miles away.

Case in point.

At least 1 million bats in the past three years have been wiped out by a puzzling, widespread disease dubbed “white-nose syndrome” in what preeminent US scientists are calling the most precipitous decline of North American wildlife in human history. If it isn’t slowed or stopped, they believe bats will continue disappearing from the landscape in huge numbers and that entire species could become extinct within a decade.

This would have drastic repercussions for the rest of us. As Tim King, a conservation geneticist with the US Geological Survey in West Virginia, told Chase, “We’re at the vanguard of an environmental catastrophe.”Baby bat

Why? Because bats are insect-eating machines, capable of consuming nearly half their body weight in insects each night. Take them out of the equation and we’ll have an explosion of pests, including disease-carrying mosquitoes and agriculturally destructive beetles, moths, leafhoppers and other foes of the farmers, who may be forced to use more pesticides as a result.

Bat colonies in Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont have averaged a shocking 94.5 percent decline since white-nose syndrome was first detected there in 2006, plummeting from 48,626 bats to 2,695. The disease’s spread “has been terrifyingly swift,” according to the Globe, starting in the Northeast and South Atlantic states and now infiltrating “caves and mines in Kentucky and Tennessee, and possibly North Carolina and Ohio.”

But, unlike colony collapse disorder, the highly publicized disease that’s destroying our bees, white nose syndrome isn’t getting much attention. As Susi von Oettingen, a biologist who works for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, noted, “They’re not charismatic. . . . We don’t make money off of them. They are not cute and cuddly.” Let’s face it; even baby bats aren’t all that adorable.

This is more than just about bats dying. It’s about a key player in our ecosystem disappearing before our eyes. It may be a model for the severity of diseases that our native species are going to be confronted with.

If it’s frogs yesterday, bees two days ago, bats today, and something else in two more years, how long before this system falls apart on us?”

(Source-Eating Liberally)

So forget a nuclear or apocalyptic Armageddon. A far more likely scenario for the eventual extinction of the human animal is a slow imbalance of the entire ecosystem that leads to our inability to sustain ourselves. A failure of food crops due to the loss of pollinators, pandemics brought on by pestilence, silent but sure killers. How will we replace the bees and the bats? Do we even understand their complete role in making our lives possible?

We understand so little about the grand interconnectedness of life on this planet. And it’s quite likely our ignorance will prove fatal long before we manage to blow ourselves to kingdom come or we witness the great battle between good and evil in the sky above us.

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November 8th, 2009

No Intelligence Required

SAPOL officers on duty.

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Another sign that intelligence and an education are becoming a liability in our society.

A US man has been rejected in his bid to become a police officer for scoring too high on an intelligence test.

Robert Jordan, a 49-year-old college graduate, took an exam to join the New London police, in Connecticut, in 1996 and scored 33 points, the equivalent of an IQ of 125.

But New London police interviewed only candidates who scored 20 to 27, on the theory that those who scored too high could get bored with police work and leave soon after undergoing costly training.

Mr Jordan launched a federal lawsuit against the city, but lost.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Mr Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.

He said: “This kind of puts an official face on discrimination in America against people of a certain class. I maintain you have no more control over your basic intelligence than your eye color or your gender or anything else.”

He said he does not plan to take any further legal action and has worked as a prison guard since he took the test.

The average score nationally for police officers is 21 to 22, the equivalent of an IQ of 104, or just a little above average. (Source-ananova.com)

In a job that at times requires the ability to make reasoned and informed decisions on matters of life and death, do we really want only those of average intelligence?

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October 25th, 2009

Blasphemy-Dangerous or Necessary?

In an effort to rebuild our relationship with the United Nations, a effort that is being questioned by many Americans, the Obama administration has chosen to support an agenda that contradicts our own Constitution.

blasphemyThe United States has backed a new UN resolution on free expression which would be considered unconstitutional under its First Amendment — which protects freedom of expression and bans sanctioning of religions.

The UN Human Rights Council on 2 October adopted the resolution, which the US had co-sponsored with Egypt. The US had finally joined the Human Rights Council in June, and its support for the measure reflected the Obama administration’s stated aim to “re-engage” with the UN.

While the new resolution focuses on freedom of expression, it also condemns “negative stereotyping of religion”. Billed as a historic compromise between Western and Muslim nations, in the wake of controversies such the Danish Muhammed cartoons, the resolution caused concern among European members.

“The language of stereotyping only applies to stereotyping of individuals, I stress individuals, and must not protect ideologies, religions or abstract values,” said France’s representative, Jean-Baptiste Mattéi, speaking for the EU. “The EU rejects the concept of defamation of religion.”

France emphasised that international human rights law protects individual believers, not systems of belief. But European members, eager not be seen as compromise wreckers, reluctantly supported the measure.

On the other side of the fault line stood the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which lobbied for a measure against “religious defamation”.

“We firmly believe that the exercise of freedom of expression carries with it special responsibilities,” said Pakistan’s delegate, speaking for the OIC. The “defamation” of religion, he said, “results in negative stereotyping of the followers of this religion and belief and leads to incitement, discrimination, hatred and violence against them, therefore directly affecting their human rights.”

Following the OIC’s logic, one could equally apply the language of the resolution to Islamism, a political form which is arguably a “contemporary manifestation of religious hatred, discrimination and xenophobia. It results in negative stereotyping of the followers of other religions and beliefs and leads to incitement, discrimination, hatred and violence against them, therefore directly affecting their human rights.”

The EU also had other worries. European members felt that the provision in the resolution on “the moral and social responsibility of the press” was objectionable in that it went beyond the limited restrictions set out in article 19, the provision on free expression in the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights. (Source-Index on Censorship)

As Jonathan Turley comments at USAToday,

Thinly disguised blasphemy laws are often defended as necessary to protect the ideals of tolerance and pluralism. They ignore the fact that the laws achieve tolerance through the ultimate act of intolerance: criminalizing the ability of some individuals to denounce sacred or sensitive values. We do not need free speech to protect popular thoughts or popular people. It is designed to protect those who challenge the majority and its institutions. Criticism of religion is the very measure of the guarantee of free speech — the literal sacred institution of society.

While I respect the right of any person to believe as they wish, I also believe that the right to speak our minds freely and without fear of reprisal, intimidation or sanction is a hallmark of Western democracy. We should not surrender our rights in order to provide uncertain security in the face of violent opposition to contrary opinions. Ben Franklin wrote, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”.

There is no reason to provide special protection to religious beliefs. The fear that religious believers will suffer “incitement, discrimination, hatred and violence against them” is nonsensical. The majority of people on the planet are religious. Religious believers hold most of the positions of power in both the East and West. They have no reason to fear the opinions of the minority. The most immediate danger to any believer in a particular god are those who believe in another god.

Criticism is not necessarily an act of hatred. Quite often criticism is an act of love. If a family member has become enslaved to drug addiction, is it an act of discrimination or hatred to criticize their addiction? If I firmly believe my country, a country I willingly served to defend, is headed in a dangerous and unconstitutional direction, should I remain mute?

Religious belief in a generic sense is predominant among humans around the globe. But there is little agreement as to the nature of the god the religious believe in. What anti-blasphemy resolutions seek to achieve will result in the inability of Baptists to speak out against the Catholic Church or reasonable people to object to the foolishness of Scientology. We will have to remain silent when Iran decides to execute those who oppose their theocracy or happen to be homosexual. Any theocratic government will be exempt from criticism by anyone for any reason.

The philosophical and legal quagmire with such legislation centers around the definition of “blasphemy.” Practically every religion, sect and cult possesses concepts that are blasphemous to another. As an important example, while Christians believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, Muslims consider him a mere prophet, albeit an important one. Calling Christ the “Son of God,” however, is viewed as “blasphemous” within Islam, as is not believing in Mohammed as Allah’s final and most important prophet. Under such anti-blasphemy legislation, therefore, all Christian literature could be confiscated and Christians arrested, because at its very core, Christianity would represent “blasphemous material” that could cause—and has caused—outrage many times in the Muslim world, explaining in part why the Bible is banned in such fundamentalist Islamic countries as Saudi Arabia.

Furthermore, the punishment for blasphemy according to the Koran includes death and maiming, as stated at Surah 5:33:

“Those that make war against God and His apostle and spread disorder in the land shall be slain or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides, or be banished from the land.”

Obviously, many people would object strenuously that there is any relationship between God and all this bigotry, cruelty and gore—to suggest otherwise would be extremely offensive to them and cause them outrage. This notion of a violent, cruel and enslaving God who approves of such behavior would offend their religious sensibilities, leaving its purveyors themselves open to charges of “blasphemy.” (Source-jdstone.org)

The lack of religious belief is just as valid a philosophical position as any religious belief. The only reason theists of any stripe think they can outlaw blasphemy is their majority status. It’s not an issue of rights or responsibility, it’s a matter of “might makes right”.

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October 11th, 2009

Adulthood is no fun

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“What do you want to be when you grow up?”

A fireman, nurse, policeman, soldier, spy, ballerina, pilot, astronaut, but mostly, especially, grown up. We want to stop being children and become adults.

Even children use “childish” as a pejorative.  Adults are responsible, mature, somber, sober and serious. The only time most adults let loose and have fun is during sex, which could explain the popularity of that activity among adults. Adulthood has no time for fun. Playing is for kids.

We adults do ourselves a disservice.

Fun is good for everyone, young and old. Playing requires imagination and to imagine is to exercise your brain.  Having fun lets you look at life askew, and what you see may impress you. Playing is refreshing. It recharges our batteries.

Fun keeps us young, it allows us to extend some aspects of childhood into adulthood. There’s value in play, as the following video points out. Not only was this a brilliant way to get people to do something healthy for themselves, it also introduces an element of play into their lives. It improves their inner and outer health. We ought to build all stairs this way. Why can’t we design hopscotch squares into our public sidewalks every few blocks? Why don’t we all relax and have a little fun everyday?

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October 2nd, 2009

On Thinking

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♦Lane Wallace, writing for The Atlantic, gives us two articles on the process of thinking that deserve further consideration:

In my experience, there are two factors that seem to make the biggest difference as to whether or not two people can have a meaningful and productive discussion from different points of view (assuming both are fairly self-assured and reasonable beings):

1. The first factor is whether the people involved see the world in black-and-white terms, or in more complex shades of gray. For those who see the world in absolute terms of black and white (on the left or the right), the only choice of movement is all the way to the other side. Which is an awfully long distance to move an opinion. People who are more inclined to see the world in nuanced shades of gray, on the other hand, can consider a slightly different shade without feeling their basic values threatened. The options for movement, and therefore their potential willingness to consider another perspective, are far greater.

2. The second factor is how skilled, practiced, and comfortable both participants are in the art of critical thinking. The website criticalthinking.org offers more definitions of what critical thinking consists of than anyone probably needs. But at its most exemplary, the site says, critical thinking is based on “clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.” Critical thinkers “avoid thinking simplisitcally about complicated issues and strive to appropriately consider the rights and needs of relevant others.” And “they realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers … they will at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest.”

Which is to say, people skilled in the art of critical thinking make a practice of questioning everything. Even their own opinions. They don’t necessarily sit in the middle ground of any debate, but they understand the potential fallibility of sources, and acknowledge the legitimate existence of other points of view … subject to examination, along with their own. Meaningful exploration and discussion of issues, therefore, becomes possible. Even productive. (The Importance of Critical Thinking)

And

How is it that people can cling to an opinion or view of a person, event, issue of the world, despite being presented with clear or mounting data that contradicts that position? The easy answer, of course, is simply that people are irrational. But a closer look at some of the particular ways and reasons we’re irrational offers some interesting food for thought.

In a recently published study, a group of researchers from Northwestern University, UNC Chapel HIll, SUNY Buffalo and Millsaps College found that people often employ an approach the researchers called “motivated reasoning” when sorting through new information or arguments, especially on controversial issues. Motivated reasoning is, as UCLA public policy professor Mark Kleiman put it, the equivalent of policy-driven data, instead of data-driven policy.

In other words, if people start with a particular opinion or view on a subject, any counter-evidence can create “cognitive dissonance”–discomfort caused by the presence of two irreconcilable ideas in the mind at once. One way of resolving the dissonance would be to change or alter the originally held opinion. But the researchers found that many people instead choose to change the conflicting evidence–selectively seeking out information or arguments that support their position while arguing around or ignoring any opposing evidence, even if that means using questionable or contorted logic.

That’s not a news flash to anyone who’s paid attention to any recent national debate–although the researchers pointed out that this finding, itself, runs counter to the idea that the reason people continue to hold positions counter to all evidence is because of misinformation or lack of access to the correct data. Even when presented with compelling, factual data from sources they trusted, many of the subjects still found ways to dismiss it. But the most interesting (or disturbing) aspect of the Northwestern study was the finding that providing additional counter-evidence, facts, or arguments actually intensified this reaction. Additional countering data, it seems, increases the cognitive dissonance, and therefore the need for subjects to alleviate that discomfort by retreating into more rigidly selective hearing and entrenched positions.

Needless to say, these findings do not bode well for anyone with hopes of changing anyone else’s mind with facts or rational discussion, especially on “hot button” issues. But why do we cling so fiercely to positions when they don’t even involve us directly? Why do we care who got to the North Pole first? Or whether a particular bill has provision X versus provision Y in it? Why don’t we care more about simply finding out the truth–especially in cases where one “right” answer actually exists?

Part of the reason, according to Kleiman, is “the brute fact that people identify their opinions with themselves; to admit having been wrong is to have lost the argument, and (as Vince Lombardi said), every time you lose, you die a little.” And, he adds, “there is no more destructive force in human affairs–not greed, not hatred–than the desire to have been right.” (All Evidence to the Contrary)

The brain is an organ of thought. Its primary purpose is to be the body’s command and control center. It has to remember, to decide, to direct other organs and limbs in the performance of their duties. It “thinks” on a number of levels at once, some conscious, others subconscious. Consciousness is the brain considering itself.

We presume to understand what we are doing when we’re “thinking”, “contemplating”, “pondering” something. We generally agree on what constitutes the practice of thinking. Yet we really know next to nothing about the process of thinking. How are thoughts formed, how are they stored, what influences the process? Is thinking simply a byproduct like waste heat from an engine? Can non-living objects think?

Though we can’t answer all the questions raised when we try to think about thinking, we do know that every person thinks slightly differently about everything. No two people think exactly the same. We are first and foremost responsible for the thoughts in our own heads. I believe we are more than just the compilation of our opinions, we are a compilation of all our thoughts. The rest of us is just meat. The brain is meat.

To practice thinking is to exercise our whole person. Thinking is a mental gym membership.

If we make a practice of thinking as consciously as possible, if we are willing to admit that what we think may be in error to some degree or another, if we remain dissatisfied with the extent of our current knowledge both individually and as a society, we should want to think. We should reject the thought that says, “Now you know all there is to know about…”

Certainty is, in many cases, not possible. There aren’t all that many absolutely true statements, especially in philosophy.

We should embrace uncertainty. It doesn’t hurt to examine new thoughts and concepts. We are under no obligation to accept all of them as valid. An open mind, like an open heart, while vulnerable, can produce benefits beyond belief. Beyond belief is knowledge.

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September 7th, 2009

Racism, it’s not what you think

It’s a natural instinct to recognize those most similar to yourself and consider those too different to be outsiders, in a sense. There’s sexism because we are aware of the differences between the sexes (straights get mad at gays because gays mess up the visual clues we all rely on to define to ourselves “the opposite sex”). There’s racism (or racial awareness) because we are aware of the differences between the colors humans come in. Actually racism is based on more than just color as there are distinguishable physical differences between the races as well that act as indicators of ethnicity.

We notice other races because nature equipped us to. It’s what we do with that awareness that determines if we are acting as racists in the conventional sense. Every culture produces racial awareness, the knowledge of the difference between them and us. But not everyone in every culture is a racist. The closer-knit the community, the more that community feels threatened by those outside that community, the easier it is for racial intolerance, sexual intolerance, etc., to exist. The more integrated and pluralistic the community (be it a church or a country) the more resistant to intolerance it becomes. Us becomes a broader concept.

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It’s not what we think about people of color, men, women, gays or anything else that makes us intolerant, bigoted, racists. It’s how we act on those thoughts. It’s how we express our perceptions of the differences between us.

Do we focus more on the differences or on the commonalities?

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August 22nd, 2009

Trying to make science respectable again

Forty years ago Americans were fascinated by science.

Science gave us Moon landings, microwave ovens and airbags. Science promised to end the drudgery in our lives, feed the hungry, extend our lifespans and cure our illnesses. Science was our great hope for the future.

In the last ten years or so we’ve seen our fascination with science replaced with disdain for intellectualism (see Anti-intellectualism is destroying America-FreThink.com and Anti-intellectualism-WayoftheMind.org)  and a return to fundamental theism. Under the influence of the ignorant and poorly informed, Americans have been encouraged to view science with scorn if not outright hostility. Science has been pitted against religious belief in what some portray as a winner-takes-all cage match. Where once Christians appreciated the contributions of science to our society they now consider science to be an effort to discredit their god. Science is being cast as the anti-Christ, the harbinger of the apocolypse. Theists claim that science is essentially atheistic and that atheists worship science instead of worshiping god. By attempting to conflate atheism with science they can dismiss the value of science with a clear conscience. Since scientists have failed to uncover any physical, conclusive and irrefutable evidence in support of a god, scientists must be anti-theism in the minds of the religious.

Atheism is the lack of a belief in gods. While the majority of those in the hard sciences identify themselves as atheists there are scientists who self-identify as theists.

A study has shown atheism in the west to be particularly prevalent among scientists, a tendency already quite marked at the beginning of the 20th century, developing into a dominant one during the course of the century. In 1914, James H. Leuba found that 58% of 1,000 randomly selected U.S. natural scientists expressed “disbelief or doubt in the existence of God” (defined as a personal God which interacts directly with human beings). The same study, repeated in 1996, gave a similar percentage of 60.7%; this number is 93% among the members of the National Academy of Sciences. Expressions of positive disbelief rose from 52% to 72%. (Source-Wikipedia)

This would indicate that science is not an exclusively atheistic field of study nor does it require an atheistic attitude to be a scientist.

Since theists can’t hope to do away with science they hope to pollute it with theistic mythology and ill-disguised attempts to turn theism into science with claims of an Intelligent Designer. Fundamental theists insist that science proceed from their bias alone. They insist that science adopt their conclusion (god did it) then make the evidence support that conclusion. They appear to be oblivious to the dishonesty inherent in this effort.

CreationismBothTheoriesTheists insist that evolution be taught as one theory among several and that ID is just as valid a theory as evolution. They make no effort to do the testing and research that may or may not substantiate their claims. Instead they insist we accept their claims just because they say we must.

As a result science has become diluted with nonsense and hampered by having to defend itself against poorly constructed and completely baseless claims of bias and atheism. Many of the complaints that theists lodge against scienceaccuse science of being materialistic. This betrays a lack of understanding of the
nature of science as well as ignorance of what “materialism” means.

But there are those in the sciences who are devoting themselves to making science popular again. They are doing their best to dispel the rumors, counter the lies and fight the fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) being spread by science’s detractors.

Chris Mooney, author of ‘Unscientific America,’ talks about the significance of Pluto’s demotion from planet, the belief that vaccines are linked to autism, and the role played by religion.

Mooney, author of the 2005 bestseller “The Republican War on Science,” and his coauthor Sheril Kirshenbaum, a marine scientist at Duke University, seek to explain how Americans have come to minimize science in a time when, they assert, we will need it most — as global warming, advances in genetics and the possibility of large-scale engineering of the Earth’s climate loom in our future.

Pointing to what they see as a deep-seated streak of anti-intellectualism in this country, the authors write: “Americans built the bomb, reached the moon, decoded the genome, and created the Internet. And yet today this country is also home to a populace that, to an alarming extent, ignores scientific advances or outright rejects scientific principles.”

While not excusing the half of American adults who don’t know that the Earth orbits the sun once per year, Mooney and Kirshenbaum say that scientists hold the key to a better public understanding of science.

Religion is the reason they think they can’t accept evolution. That’s because they are told by their pastors from the pulpit, all across the country, that evolution is an assault on their identity, their moral universe and their ability to raise children who get taught this. So there’s been an attempt to create a hermetically sealed environment in the conservative Christian community that keeps this stuff out. And that’s a huge problem.

What’s preventing people from embracing science? We know it is religion, but do we really know why people are creationists? When I look at how many scientists approach the evolution issue, I don’t see that understanding.

If I read ScienceBlogs, what I see are endless eloquent refutations of the creationists based on science. It’s been done to death. Obviously, that doesn’t convince anybody. And that’s because people who don’t believe in evolution are not driven by scientific considerations. So that’s not how you should be trying to reach them

Clearly the Web is going to be part of the answer because there is no avoiding it. But I don’t think science-centered blogs or Twitter are going to be the way to reach beyond the people you are already reaching.

So you look at what kind of things have reached beyond. My best example is YouTube videos that go viral and get millions of views. There’s a couple of science videos that have really caught on. The Large Hadron Rap is the best. It’s rapping about the Large Hadron Collider. They go in the tube and they’re rapping about the fundamental nature of matter and what they’re going to discover, but it’s just cool. They are being nerds, but they are being fun nerds. It really was a smash hit.

Scientists are going to have to have a culture change. They will have to realize that it is important to train people in more than research. And the necessity of that is born out of the numbers game. Only a small number of people in graduate school today are going to be researchers because there aren’t enough positions. It will be a realignment of priorities for universities, granting agencies, and scientific societies.

I think a lot of executives at media companies need to have a mind-set change and stop thinking science coverage is death for ratings. That’s not necessarily so. The Discovery Channel is not doing that badly. Clearly, you can cover science well. The media needs to get over the “I’m-a-pissed-off-middle-school-student-and-science-isn’t-for-me” kind of mind set. Science coverage should be high-standard, it should be entertaining, it shouldn’t make them lose money. (Source-L.A. Times)

I wish them well. They face organized and well-financed opposition.

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What we really need is a Mr. Wizard for the 21st century.We need someone who can explain science and its findings in a way that is both entertaining and educational. We need to expose youngsters to the full history of the sciences as well as what the future could hold for a science-based society.

At the same time we need scientists like PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins to continue to speak out and expose the efforts of theists to compromise science and get around the scientific method. Atheism and science warrant separate defenses as they are not necessarily yoked. Just as not all scientists are atheists, not all atheists follow science. Both approaches to understanding our natural world may frequently come to similar conclusions, but that does not imply either correlation or causation.

We owe it to future generations to preserve our national dependence on and confidence in science.

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August 15th, 2009

Are you a Seekaholic?

A human brain.

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The following Salon article raises interesting questions regarding our brain’s insatiable need for stimulation. Are we hard-wired to seek?

In 1954, psychologist James Olds and his team were working in a laboratory at McGill University, studying how rats learned. They would stick an electrode in a rat’s brain and, whenever the rat went to a particular corner of its cage, would give it a small shock and note the reaction. One day they unknowingly inserted the probe in the wrong place, and when Olds tested the rat, it kept returning over and over to the corner where it received the shock. He eventually discovered that if the probe was put in the brain’s lateral hypothalamus and the rats were allowed to press a lever and stimulate their own electrodes, they would press until they collapsed.

Olds, and everyone else, assumed he’d found the brain’s pleasure center (some scientists still think so). Later experiments done on humans confirmed that people will neglect almost everything—their personal hygiene, their family commitments—in order to keep getting that buzz.

But to Washington State University neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp, this supposed pleasure center didn’t look very much like it was producing pleasure. Those self-stimulating rats, and later those humans, did not exhibit the euphoric satisfaction of creatures eating Double Stuf Oreos or repeatedly having orgasms. The animals, he writes in Affective Neuroscience: The Foundations of Human and Animal Emotions, were “excessively excited, even crazed.” The rats were in a constant state of sniffing and foraging. Some of the human subjects described feeling sexually aroused but didn’t experience climax. Mammals stimulating the lateral hypothalamus seem to be caught in a loop, Panksepp writes, “where each stimulation evoked a reinvigorated search strategy” (and Panksepp wasn’t referring to Bing).

It is an emotional state Panksepp tried many names for: curiosity, interest, foraging, anticipation, craving, expectancy. He finally settled on seeking. Panksepp has spent decades mapping the emotional systems of the brain he believes are shared by all mammals, and he says, “Seeking is the granddaddy of the systems.” It is the mammalian motivational engine that each day gets us out of the bed, or den, or hole to venture forth into the world. It’s why, as animal scientist Temple Grandin writes in Animals Make Us Human, experiments show that animals in captivity would prefer to have to search for their food than to have it delivered to them.

For humans, this desire to search is not just about fulfilling our physical needs. Panksepp says that humans can get just as excited about abstract rewards as tangible ones. He says that when we get thrilled about the world of ideas, about making intellectual connections, about divining meaning, it is the seeking circuits that are firing.

The juice that fuels the seeking system is the neurotransmitter dopamine. The dopamine circuits “promote states of eagerness and directed purpose,” Panksepp writes. It’s a state humans love to be in. So good does it feel that we seek out activities, or substances, that keep this system aroused—cocaine and amphetamines, drugs of stimulation, are particularly effective at stirring it.

Ever find yourself sitting down at the computer just for a second to find out what other movie you saw that actress in, only to look up and realize the search has led to an hour of Googling? Thank dopamine. Our internal sense of time is believed to be controlled by the dopamine system. People with hyperactivity disorder have a shortage of dopamine in their brains, which a recent study suggests may be at the root of the problem. For them even small stretches of time seem to drag. An article by Nicholas Carr in the Atlantic last year, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” speculates that our constant Internet scrolling is remodeling our brains to make it nearly impossible for us to give sustained attention to a long piece of writing. Like the lab rats, we keep hitting “enter” to get our next fix.

But our brains are designed to more easily be stimulated than satisfied. “The brain seems to be more stingy with mechanisms for pleasure than for desire,” Berridge has said. This makes evolutionary sense. Creatures that lack motivation, that find it easy to slip into oblivious rapture, are likely to lead short (if happy) lives. So nature imbued us with an unquenchable drive to discover, to explore. Stanford University neuroscientist Brian Knutson has been putting people in MRI scanners and looking inside their brains as they play an investing game. He has consistently found that the pictures inside our skulls show that the possibility of a payoff is much more stimulating than actually getting one.

Actually all our electronic communication devices—e-mail, Facebook feeds, texts, Twitter—are feeding the same drive as our searches. Since we’re restless, easily bored creatures, our gadgets give us in abundance qualities the seeking/wanting system finds particularly exciting. Novelty is one. Panksepp says the dopamine system is activated by finding something unexpected or by the anticipation of something new. If the rewards come unpredictably—as e-mail, texts, updates do—we get even more carried away. No wonder we call it a “CrackBerry.” (Source-Salon)

If you found this post via StumbleUpon, you might be a seekaholic. If you found this post by searching for the tags, you might be a seekaholic. If, after reading this post, you click on the following links to other articles on human nature, you might be a seekaholic.

There’s no shame in that. It appears being a seekaholic is a natural state for humans.

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August 13th, 2009

Is this “health care”?

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This is being sponsored at one of the largest local hospitals. You know, a hospital, where educated people work who have been trained in medicine; where I might one day wind up in serious condition, depending on these people to save my life. It’s a place I would expect to find critical thinking, scientific approaches and a general attitude of disdain for new-age hucksterism.

Obviously I am very wrong.

Holistic Healing

This class will introduce energy maps of the body, its meridians, chakras, auras and bilateral pathways and will teach many principles and techniques for healing and relaxing to enhance immune function and well-being.
Date and Time
Third Monday of every month
9:30 to 11 am
Location
Sharp Memorial Outpatient Pavilion
Classroom A and B
3075 Health Center Drive
San Diego, CA 92123  (Source)

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July 17th, 2009

Skepticism or, knowledge trumps belief

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Skepticism is what motivates many of us to say “I want to know” instead of “I want to believe”.

Belief is only a component of knowledge. Belief is a temporary stop on the road to knowledge, not the goal.

Michael Shermer has composed a clear and concise explanation of the role of skepticism not just in science but in life.

The postmodernist belief in the relativism of truth, coupled to the clicker culture of mass media where attention spans are measured in New York minutes, leaves us with a bewildering array of truth claims packaged in infotainment units. It must be true—I saw it on television, at the movies, on the Internet. The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, That’s Incredible, The Sixth Sense, Poltergeist, Loose Change, Zeitgeist the Movie. Mysteries, magic, myths and monsters. The occult and the supernatural. Conspiracies and cabals. The face on Mars and aliens on Earth. Bigfoot and Loch Ness. ESP and PSI. UFOs and ETIs. JFK, RFK and MLK—alphabet conspiracies. Altered states and hypnotic regression. Remote viewing and astroprojection. Ouija boards and Tarot cards. Astrology and palm reading. Acupuncture and chiropractic. Repressed memories and false memories. Talking to the dead and listening to your inner child. Such claims are an obfuscating amalgam of theory and conjecture, reality and fantasy, nonfiction and science fiction. Cue dramatic music. Darken the backdrop. Cast a shaft of light across the host’s face. The truth is out there. I want to believe.

What I want to believe based on emotions and what I should believe based on evidence does not always coincide. And after 99 monthly columns of exploring such topics (this is Opus 100), I conclude that I’m a skeptic not because I do not want to believe but because I want to know. I believe that the truth is out there. But how can we tell the difference between what we would like to be true and what is actually true? The answer is science.

Science begins with the null hypothesis, which assumes that the claim under investigation is not true until demonstrated otherwise. The statistical standards of evidence needed to reject the null hypothesis are substantial. Ideally, in a controlled experiment, we would like to be 95 to 99 percent confident that the results were not caused by chance before we offer our provisional assent that the effect may be real. Failure to reject the null hypothesis does not make the claim false, and, conversely, rejecting the null hypothesis is not a warranty on truth. Nevertheless, the scientific method is the best tool ever devised to discriminate between true and false patterns, to distinguish between reality and fantasy, and to detect baloney.

The null hypothesis means that the burden of proof is on the person asserting a positive claim, not on the skeptics to disprove it. I once appeared on Larry King Live to discuss UFOs (a perennial favorite of his), along with a table full of UFOlogists. King’s questions for other skeptics and me typically miss this central tenet of science. It is not up to the skeptics to disprove UFOs. Although we cannot run a controlled experiment that would yield a statistical probability of rejecting (or not) the null hypothesis that aliens are not visiting Earth, proof would be simple: show us an alien spacecraft or an extraterrestrial body. Until then, keep searching and get back to us when you have something. Unfortunately for UFOlogists, scientists cannot accept as de­finitive proof of alien visitation such evidence as blurry photographs, grainy videos and anecdotes about spooky lights in the sky. Photographs and videos can be easily doctored, and lights in the sky have many prosaic explanations (aerial flares, lighted balloons, experimental aircraft, even Venus). Nor do government documents with redacted paragraphs count as evidence for ET contact, because we know that governments keep secrets for national security reasons. Terrestrial secrets do not equate to extra­terrestrial cover-ups.

So many claims of this nature are based on negative evidence. That is, if science cannot explain X, then your explanation for X is necessarily true. Not so. In science, lots of mysteries are left unexplained until further evidence arises, and problems are often left unsolved until another day. I recall a mystery in cosmology in the early 1990s whereby it appeared that there were stars older than the universe itself—the daughter was older than the mother! Thinking that I might have a hot story to write about that would reveal something deeply wrong with current cosmological models, I first queried California Institute of Technology cosmologist Kip S. Thorne, who assured me that the discrepancy was merely a problem in the current estimates of the age of the universe and that it would resolve itself in time with more data and better dating techniques. It did, as so many problems in science eventually do. In the meantime, it is okay to say, “I don’t know,” “I’m not sure” and “Let’s wait and see.”

The principle of positive evidence applies to all claims. Skeptics are from Missouri, the Show-Me state. Show me a Sasquatch body. Show me the archaeological artifacts from Atlantis. Show me a Ouija board that spells words with securely blindfolded participants. Show me a Nostradamus quatrain that predicted World War II or 9/11 before (not after) the fact (postdictions don’t count in science). Show me the evidence that alternative medicines work better than placebos. Show me an ET or take me to the Mothership. Show me the Intelligent Designer. Show me God. Show me, and I’ll believe.

(Source-Scientific American)

Those who believe without question fail to do the work required to justify knowledge. Knowledge is open-ended, it welcomes skepticism. The scientific method requires skepticism. Skepticism is anathema to untested belief. Science welcomes contrary theories. “True Believers” either mock, rail against or ignore contrary evidence and contrary opinions. If your theories can’t deal with the evidence, discount the evidence. Don’t, whatever you do, rethink your opinions or reconsider your beliefs.

Skepticism raises the standard of evidence to a high degree. It doesn’t accept the easy or popular answer. Shermer mentions the skeptic’s mantra, “show me”. Show me that what you believe is real, true, sensible. Don’t tell me, people tell stories all the time. Show me.

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