The Social Animal

1/12/11. Brain science will change how we view ourselves.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/01/17/110117fa_fact_brooks?currentPage=all

Massacre, Followed by Libel

1/12/11. Smart people, jumping to conclusions, missing key information, to confirm their biases, does not equal intelligence.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011106068.html

Murder in Arizona

1/11/11. Mental health services in Arizona are among the worst in the nation. The tragedy of the murder in Arizona, says E.Fuller Torrey, began when we emptied the mental hospitals starting in the 1960s without providing adequate treatment alternatives.

Both the political right and political left had a hand in turning their backs on the mentally ill.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703779704576073973345594508.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop#printMode

Junk Science is Not a Victimless Crime

1/11/11. A 1998 study published in Lancet, a leading medical journal, claimed that the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine might cause autism --- using eight autistic children in the sample. This poorly designed research sparked a storm of controversy, leading many parents to stop giving vaccines to their children. Many children needlessly died.

This kind of study with large samples across continents, proper controls and statistical analyses have looked at the relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism, and have been repeated 14 times. The studies have shown that MMR does NOT cause autism.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703779704576073744290909186.html?KEYWORDS=junk+science+is+not+a+victimless+crime

Debbie Friedman. R.I.P.

1/11/11. Singer and songwriter of Jewish Music.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/arts/music/11friedman.html?hpw

Murder in Tucson

1/10/1l. The WSJ's sober editorial about the murder in Tucson.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703667904576071943007100666.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Monday Quotations

1/10/11.

"A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested."

--- Tom Wolfe (1931 -  )


"There is no explanation for evil. It must be looked upon as a necessary part of the order of the universe. To ignore it is childish, to bewail it senseless.

--- W. Somerset Maughn (1874 - 1965)


"Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated."

--- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

Grace, Elegance and Wit

1/9/11. Denis Dutton, founder of ALD, brought a window into the intellectual world onto the web.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704405704576064540563199586.html?KEYWORDS=denis+dutton

Book Review: The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human

1/8/11. Dr. Raymond Tallis, emeritus professor of geriatric medicine, reviews Dr. V.S. Ramachandran's book on the brain. Dr. Tallis knows of what he speaks --- that is, neuroscients are experts at creating the illusion of understanding what makes us human. When, if fact, neuroscientists have no clue how the brain creates the mind and consciousness.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704034804576025681468057572.html?KEYWORDS=the+mind+in+the+mirror

Book Review: The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science and Fear

1/8/11. Michael Schermer, publisher of Skeptic Magazine, reviews Seth Mnookin's incisive book about the fallacious link between autism and vaccines causing an epidemic of ignorance.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704034804576025682621085122.html?KEYWORDS=an+epidemic+of+ignorance

Is the Internet Changing the Way You Think?

1/6/11. The answers are...?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704405704576064900279077050.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

Sex in America

1/6/11. The survey says...

http://reason.com/blog/2011/01/05/sex-in-america-new-survey-resu

Seeing the Future

1/6/11.

"One of psychology’s most respected journals has agreed to publish a paper presenting what its author describes as strong evidence for extrasensory perception, the ability to sense future events." I knew it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/science/06esp.html?_r=1&ref=science&pagewanted=all

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/01/06/the-esp-study-when-science-goes-psychic/a-cutoff-for-craziness

Psychological Therapy and Depression

1/5/11.

Science writer Jonah Lehrer on the importance of psychological therapy for depression:

Every period has its signature disorder. We live in the age of depression. Consider a brand new survey published in the Archives of General Psychiatry: Between 1998 and 2007, the percentage of Americans being treated for depression increased by more than 20 percent. Other studies estimate that somewhere between 20 and 40 percent of American adults will suffer from depression at some point in their life.

Obviously, there’s a dizzying array of forces that are causing this rise. Part of the problem is diagnosis, as people like Alan Horwitz and Jerome Wakefield have argued. Thanks to changes in the DSM, Horwitz and Wakefield insist that we’ve medicalized sadness, transforming anguish and its synonyms into a clinical condition.

But it remains unknown how much of the rise in depression is accounted for by changes in diagnosis. And I think it’s extremely important to not dismiss the likely possibility that, even if our diagnostic standards had remained constant, there would still be a rise in depression. In other words, is there something about the way we live now that’s making us extremely sad? Are these intensely negative feelings symptoms of a larger societal problem?

Hard questions, no easy answers. In this blog post, I’d like to focus instead on one of the troubling data points in this most recent medical survey, which is that the percentage of depressed subjects seeking psychotherapy for treatment declined dramatically between 1998 and 2007, from 53.6 percent to 43.1 percent. (This drop has come despite the fact that a majority of subjects say talk therapy is their preferred method of treatment.) Needless to say, pills have taken the place of therapists, as more than 75 percent of depressed patients are now treated with anti-depressants, which has led to a dramatic increase in medical spending on the disorder. Between 1998 and 2007, Medicare expenditures for depression increased from $0.52 billion (1998) to $2.25 billion (2007).

When anti-depressants work, they are little blue miracles. But they often don’t work, at least not at rates higher significantly higher than placebo. (Plus, they often have unpleasant side-effects, which leads more than half of patients to stop taking the drugs shortly after the worst symptoms disappear. And then they relapse, which helps explain why patients treated with SSRI’s have relapse rates above 75 percent.) And that’s why I’m troubled by the drop in talk therapy, as most studies demonstrate that the most effective treatment for depression is pharmaceuticals coupled with a good therapist. Furthermore, many different kinds of therapy can be effective. For instance, the same December 2010 issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry also contains an interesting comparative study of anti-depressants and mindfulness therapy in preventing relapse following an extended depressive episode. The mindfulness therapy itself was straightforward stuff, if time intensive. There were eight weekly group sessions of two hours each, plus a full day retreat and optional one-hour meditation classes. The subjects learned how to reflect upon their feelings with “non-judgmental awareness” and “self-compassion.” They were urged to apply their new mindfulness skills to everyday life challenges.

The results were stark. Not surprisingly, patients who escaped depression with the help of anti-depressants, and then stopped taking the drugs, relapsed about 70 percent of the time. The chemical boost was temporary. However, during the 18 month follow-up period, only 28 percent of patients in mindfulness therapy slipped back into the mental illness.

What we often forget is that therapy alters the chemical brain, just like a pill. It’s easy to dismiss words as airy nothings and talk therapy as mere talk. Sitting on a couch can seem like such an antiquated form of treatment. But the right kind of talk can fix our broken mind, helping us escape from the recursive loop of stress and negative emotion that’s making us depressed. Changing our thoughts is never easy and, in severe cases, might seem virtually impossible. We live busy lives and therapy requires hours of work and constant practice; our cortex can be so damn stubborn. But the data is clear: If we are seeking a long-lasting cure for depression, then it’s typically our most effective treatment.

Conquering Fear

1/4/11. Tremble no more.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059823679423598.html?KEYWORDS=conquering+fear

Resilience

1/4/11. There is one universal in human life:  struggle. Life is like climbing one mountain after another. The challenge is to enjoy mountain climbing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/health/04mind.html?_r=1&hpw

The Elements of Clunk

1/3/11. What's the matter with writing today?

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Elements-of-Clunk/125757/

Study vs. Study

1/3/11. Scientists search for truth. Why is truth so hard to find?

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=12510202

Monday Quotations

1/3/11.

"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of."

--- Ogden Nash (1902 - 1971)


"Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow.
There is no humor in heaven."

--- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)


"It seemed the world was divided into good and bad people. The good ones slept better...
while the bad ones seemed to enjoy the waking hours much more.

Woody Allen (1935 - )

Can Congress Make You Buy Broccoli?

12/31/10. Yes, No, or Maybe?

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/can-congress-make-you-buy-broccoli/?print=1

Making 2011 the Year of Great Relationships

12/20/10.

WSJ writer Elizabeth Bernstein:

"Increasingly, experts have been telling us how important social bonds are to well-being, affecting everything from how our brains process information to how our bodies respond to stress. People with strong connections to others may live longer. The quality of our relationships is the single biggest predictor of our happiness..."


http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203731004576045721718177728.html?KEYWORDS=elizabeth+bernstein#articleTabs%3Darticle

Billy Taylor. R.I.P.

12/30/10. Jazz pianist.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/arts/music/30taylor.html?_r=1&hpw

Denis Dutton. R.I.P.

12/29/10.

December 28, 2010, 11:14 am

"Denis Dutton, founder and editor of Arts & Letters Daily and a professor of philosophy at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, has died. Born in California, Mr. Dutton received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California at Santa Barbara. He created Arts & Letters Daily in 1998. The Chronicle of Higher Education purchased the widely praised site in 2002."

Chronicle of Higher Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/founder-of-arts-letters-daily-dies/29349

The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2010/12/denis-dutton.html

The New York Times
http://www.city-journal.org/2010/eon1229td.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/01/arts/01dutton.html?_r=1&hpw

So Young and So Many Pills

12/28/10. So many children and adolescents benefit from accurate diagnoses of medical and psychiatric disorders --- and sometimes medications offer life-saving benefits.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203731004576046073896475588.html?KEYWORDS=kids+and+drugs

Monday Quotations

12/27/10.

"I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no
color prejudices nor caste prejudices nor creed
prejudices. Indeed, I know it. I can stand any society.
All that I care to know is that a man is a human being --- that is enough for me; he can't be any worse."

---Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)


"He who would do good to another must do it
in minute particulars;
General good is the plea of the scoundrel,
hypocrite, and flatterer:
For art and science cannot exist but in
minutely organized particulars.

---William Blake (1757 - 1827)


"Liberty is the hardest test that one can inflict
on a people. To know how to be free is not
given equally to all men and all nations."

--- Paul Valery (1871 - 1945)

The Original Birth of Freedom

12/27/10. Starting in Athens.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_4_history-of-freedom.html

Book Review: "Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life"

12/24/10.

Eric Felten introduces the author Karen Armstrong:

"...A couple of years ago the TED Conference awarded a prize to popular religious historian Karen Armstrong. In addition to giving her a handsome cash award, the TED people offered to fulfill a wish of hers for a better world. And so they helped her to organize a "Charter for Compassion." Suggestions were solicited across the Internet for how we can restore compassion to the center of moral life. This trove of deep thoughts was culled "by leading thinkers from a variety of major faiths" and condensed into a manifesto in favor of empathy, the golden rule and 'a principled determination to transcend selfishness...' "
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704774604576036192104542026.html?KEYWORDS=try+a+little+less+tenderness

The Rational Optimist

12/24/10. Three views on Matt Ridley, including Matt Ridley.

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/three-views-of-matt-ridley/

The Arduous Community

12/22/10.

David Brooks on Erica Brown:

"...Then I invited her to coffee, and it all became clear. Brown has what many people are looking for these days. In the first place, she has conviction. For her, Judaism isn’t a punch line or a source of neuroticism; it’s a path to self-confident and superior living. She didn’t seem hostile to the things that make up most coffee-table chatter — status, celebrity, policy, pop culture — she just didn’t show much interest. As one of her students e-mailed me: “Erica embodies Judaism’s stand against idol worship. It is actually true that she worships nothing other than God, which is particularly unusual in Washington..."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/opinion/21brooks.html?src=me&ref=homepage

Tracing the Spark of Creative Puzzle-Solving

12/22/10.

"...In a just completed study, researchers at Northwestern University found that people were more likely to solve word puzzles with sudden insight when they were amused, having just seen a short comedy routine..."


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/science/07brain.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all

Joseph Epstein: "The long, unhappy life of Saul Bellow"

12/20/10. Who knew? Joseph Epstein, and others.

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/The-long--unhappy-life-of-Saul-Bellow-6495

NewScientist: Best Books of 2010

12/20/10. Scientists and authors pick their favorite books of the year.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/12/best-books-of-2010-its-funny-when-a-planet-dies.html

Monday Quotations

12/20/10

“I hold this to be the highest task for a bond between two people: that each protects the solitude of the other.”

--- Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926)


“I’m dreaming of a white Christmas,
Just like the one I used to know,
Where the tree-tops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow.”

--- Irving Berlin (1888 – 1989)


“In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
Now, heaven knows,
Anything goes.”

--- Cole Porter (1891 – 1964)

Einstein's God

12/15/10. So if God does not roll dice --- what is God's role?

http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/columns/michael-shermer/einstein%E2%80%99s-god

How to Cope with Adult Temper Tantrums

12/14/10.

WSJ writer Elizabeth Bernstein on relationships and anger:

How do you keep a loved one's tantrums from ruining your relationship? Here are some tips from the experts:
Don't be silent. Ignoring the bad behavior enables it. And withdrawal makes the angry person feel judged, says Joe James, a psychologist and anger-management specialist.

Validate the feelings, not the behavior. 'Say, "Honey, I understand that you are really upset," ' says Karen McMahon, a divorce and separation coach from Oceanside, N.Y. 'You are not validating their reaction; you are validating their emotion. And it is the quickest way to disarm them.'

Explain later why the behavior upsets you. Were you embarrassed? Irritated that an evening out was ruined? Frustrated that the situation caused delays? Say, 'I love you but it's hard for me to be supportive of you when you handle a situation like that.'

Ask open-ended questions. How does the person feel about her behavior? Is she under stress? Try to understand what's going on.

Change your own behavior. Stop upholding your end of the relationship—refuse to cook, say—until the bad behavior stops. 'As soon as one person begins to change, the dance has to change,' Ms. McMahon says. 'The shift always happens when you change yourself, not the other person.'

 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703727804576017430496839642.html?KEYWORDS=This+Loved+One+will+Explode

"Anger helps straighten out a problem like a fan helps straighten out a pile of papers."

---Susan Mancotte

Untangling the Myths About Attention Disorders

12/13/10. Perri Klass, M.D. reviews some concrete evidence for a real, but intangible disorder.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/14/health/14klass.html?_r=1&hpw

Stephen Hawking's Radical Philosophy of Science

12/12/10. Psychologist and editor of Skeptic Magazine, Michael Shermer outlines this radical view of science.

Michael Shermer writes:

"Do you think that there is a computer screen sitting in front of you right now?


It would certainly seem so if you are reading these words online, but in fact you are not actually “seeing” the computer screen in front of you. What you see are photons of light bouncing off the screen (and generated by the internal electronics of the screen itself), which pass through the hole in the iris of your eye, through the liquid medium inside your eye, wending their way through the bipolar and ganglion cells to strike the rods and cones at the back of your retina. These photons of light carry just enough energy to bend the molecules inside the rods and cones to change the electrochemical balance inside these cells, causing them to fire, or have what neuroscientists call an “action potential.” ...
http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/columns/michael-shermer/stephen-hawking’s-radical-philosophy-of-science

A Roomful of Yearning and Regret

12/12/10.

Wendy Plump writes from personal experience in her marriage --- how affairs damage trust and wreck lives.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/fashion/12Modern.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=a%20roomful%20of%20yearning%20and%20regret&st=cse

Human Nature and Capitalism

12/12/10. Arthur C. Brooks and Peter Wehner:

"The model of human nature one embraces will guide and shape everything else, from the economic system one prefers to the political system one supports."

http://www.american.com/archive/2010/december/human-nature-and-capitalism

BOOK RECOMMENDATION: "What is Mental Illness?"

12/12/10.

Richard J. McNally, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, is the author of just published (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011) "what is mental illness?"

In his first chapter, Professor McNally reviews recent research indicating that mental illness is a public health crises, affecting nearly 50% of Americans, according to a study from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication, a study involving psychiatric interviews with a sample of more than nine thousand adults.

Not everybody agrees with these staggering results suggesting that the world is an outpatient psychiatric clinic. Paul McHugh, a former chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University, remarked, "Fifty percent of Americans mentally impaired--are you kidding me? Pretty soon we'll have a syndrome for short, fat Irish guys with a Boston accent, and I'll be mentally ill."

Professor McNally's book consists of eight chapters, each chapter asks a question:

1.  An Epidemic of Madness?

2.  Are We Pathologizing Everyday Life?

3.  Can Evolutionary Psychology Make Sense of Mental Disorder?

4.  Psychopathology as Adaptation?

5.  Does Society Create (Some) Mental Disorders?

6,  Is It in Our Genes?

7.  Do Mental Disorders Differ by Kind or Degree?

8.  So What is Mental Illness Anyway?

Professor McNally offers some hope to reduce the confusion over the nature of psychiatric disorders and improve our understanding of the mind and caring for patients.

Do You Remember the Future?

12/11/10.

Matt Ridley writes:

...There is a growing conviction within neuroscience that one of the human mind's chief preoccupations is prediction. Jeff Hawkins, the founder of Palm Computing who is now a full-time neuroscientist, argued in his 2004 book "On Intelligence" that the mind does this by detecting a familiar pattern in its input, then anticipating from past experience what usually follows. The more unexpected something is, the more conscious we are of it...
...This explains a lot about awareness. When I push my foot down on the brake pedal, I expect to feel deceleration. If I do, I am barely conscious of the fact: My mind continues to concentrate on the radio or my conversation with my passenger. If I don't, I am immediately so aware of the car skidding on the ice or the brakes failing that my mind is fully occupied with the failed prediction...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704156304576003432223218682.html?KEYWORDS=matt+ridley

Neurologist Oliver Sacks on Face Blindness Q & A

12/11/10.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2010/12/biology_and_biography

Winning Novels about Failure

12/10/10. Booker prize winning author Howard Jacobson lists five winners about failure.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703296604576005581552948462.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

"The Truth Wears Off"

12/8/10. The following is a quote from science writer Jonah Lehrer's article in the current issue of "The New Yorker" (12/13/10):

..."We like to pretend that our experiments define the truth for us. But that's often not the case. Just because an idea is true doesn't mean it can be proved. And just because an idea can be proved doesn't mean it's true. When the experiments are done, we still have to choose what to believe."

Jonah Lehrer's blog:  "The Frontal Cortex"

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/frontal-cortex/

How Primary Care Doctors Try to Spot Depression

12/7/10.  Four core components of depression:

• Impairment of mood.
• Often sad, irritability often missed as symptom of depression.
• Loss of previously enjoyed activities and pleasures.
• Amotivation and withdrawal from activities.
• Stress intolerance --- no bounce to the tires.

Ask two questions:

• How's your mood?
• Still doing the things you like to do, and enjoying life?

Must rule out four things:

• Suicidal Ideation.
• come right out and ask the question about ideas about self-harm - the question won't make things worse, Do you plan to kill yourself? What are you planning to do?
• Psychosis.
• ask about hearing voices or seeing things.
• Substance Abuse.
• Bipolar Disorder.
• Have you ever had time in the past when you've gone a few days or more the opposite of depressed, not just normal, but so full of energy that other people couldn't keep up with you, your thoughts were racing, you couldn't sleep, you did impulsive things like buy a car on the spur of the moment, or start a love affair with a stranger, or have grand schemes to start a new business?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703471904576003520708615998.html?KEYWORDS=doctors+and+depression

The Destiny of Cities

12/7/10.

Victor Davis Hanson writes:

"Throughout history, forces both natural and human have made cities rise and fall.


The eruption of Mount Vesuvius obliterated Pompeii and Herculaneum.As the world steadily grows more urbanized, with 50 percent of its population no longer rural, it is more important than ever to ask how cities either perish or manage to survive. The question can be hard to answer. Why, following centuries of periodic depopulation and neglect, are Rome and Athens once again capitals, while Leptis Magna and Ephesus—once-thriving imperial powerhouses on the coasts of Libya and Turkey, respectively—are long deserted? Was it climate, or location, or a larger cultural tradition of resilience that eventually brought Rome and Athens back in a way that didn’t happen with the other two cities?"...

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_4_destiny-of-cities.html

Social Science Palooza

12/7/10. David Brooks discusses some recent findings about human behavior.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/opinion/07brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

What's Really Wrong With WikiLeaks?

12/7/10. A psychiatrist examines WikiLeaks.

"...But WikiLeaks goes far beyond the need to expose wrongdoing, or supposed wrongdoing: it is unwittingly doing the work of totalitarianism...
...The idea behind WikiLeaks is that life should be an open book, that everything that is said and done should be immediately revealed to everybody, that there should be no secret agreements, deeds, or conversations. In the fanatically puritanical view of WikiLeaks, no one and no organization should have anything to hide. It is scarcely worth arguing against such a childish view of life...

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/eon1202td.html

Monday Quotations

12/6/10.

"Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of a style."

--- Jonathan Swift (1667 - 1745)


"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education."

--- Thomas Jefferson (1743 - 1826)


"We are so made, that we can only derive intense enjoyment from a contrast, and only very little from a state of things."

--- Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939)

Illusions

12/1/10. Stefan Kanfer reviews "Houdini:  Art and Magic," by Brooke Kamin Rapaport.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/bc1119sk.html

An Odyssey Through the Brain

11/30/10. This is your brain in pictures.

Abigail Zuger, M.D. writes:

"Who has seen the mind? Neither you nor I — nor any of the legions of neuroscientists bent on opening the secrets of that invisible force, as powerful and erratic as the wind." ...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/science/30brain.html?_r=1&hpw

Monday Quotations

11/29/10.

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

--- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)


"Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship."

--- Harry S. Truman (1884 - 1972)


"This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."

--- T.S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)

100 Notable Books of 2010

11/28/10. NYT.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/books/review/100-notable-books-2010.html?_r=1

NYT Book Recommendations

11/27/10. Three NYTs book reviewers make some recommendations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/26/books/26introbooks.html?_r=1&hp

Fragile Urban Families

11/27/10. Many children left behind.

Kay S. Hymowitz:

"New findings show just how bad things are for the kids.


Poverty is on the rise, according to census data, and now affects 14.3 percent of the population, up from 13.2 percent in 2008. A stumbling economy obviously explains the recent uptick. But those who think that poor urban families’ problems have an economic fix would do well to pick up the fall issue of The Future of Children, a journal jointly published by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Brookings Institution . . ."

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_4_snd-urban-families.html

Denis Dutton: A Darwinian theory of beauty

11/26/10. Dennis Dutton is a philosophy professor and the editor of Arts and Letters Daily:

http://www.artsandlettersdaily.com/

In his book "The Art Instinct," he suggests that humans are hard-wired to seek beauty.

Here, Professor Dutton gives a video presentation (15:33) of his theory of beauty.

http://www.ted.com/talks/denis_dutton_a_darwinian_theory_of_beauty.html

Al-Quaeda Marching Band To Join Macy's Parade After Incredible Audition

11/25/10. Marching to a different drummer?

http://www.theonion.com/articles/alqaeda-marching-band-to-join-macys-parade-after-i,18508/

Gratitude is a Healthy Attitude

11/24/10. May all your thinks be thanks.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704243904575630541486290052.html?KEYWORDS=gratitude

Edge: Richard Thaler's Question

11/22/10.

THALER'S QUESTION

"The flat earth and geocentric world are examples of wrong scientific beliefs that were held for long periods. Can you name your favorite example and for extra credit why it was believed to be true?"

65 scientists answer:

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/thaler10/thaler10_index.html

Sample answers:

JONATHAN HAIDT

Psychologist, University of Virginia; Author, "The Happiness Hypothesis."

The closest thing to a persistent flat earth belief in psychology is probably the view that experiences in the first five years of life largely shape the personality of the adult. (The child is father to the man, as Freud said). It's now clear that experiences that affect brain development, such as some viral diseases or some head injuries, can indeed change adult personality. Also, extreme conditions that endure for years or that interfere with the formation of early attachments (e.g., an abusive parent) can also have lasting effects. But the idea that relatively short-lived experiences in the first few years — even traumatic ones, and even short-lived sexual abuse — will have powerful effects on adult personality... this just doesn't seem to be true. (Although such events can leave lasting traces on older children). Personality is shaped by the interaction of genes with experience; psychologists and lay people alike long underestimated the power of genes, and they spent too much time looking at the wrong phase of childhood (early childhood), instead of at the developmental phases that matter more (i.e., the prenatal period, and adolescence).

Why is early childhood such a draw when people try to explain adult personalities? I think it's because we think in terms of stories, and it's almost impossible for us NOT to look back from Act III (adulthood) to early childhood (act I) when we try to explain someone turned out to be a hero or serial killer. In stories, there's usually some foreshadowing in act I of events to come in act III. But in real life there is almost never a connection.


JUDITH HARRIS

Psychologist. Author, "No Two Alike."

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. In other words, people tend to resemble their parents. They resemble their parents not only in physical appearance but also, to some degree, in psychological characteristics.

The question is: Why? Two competing answers have been offered: nature (the genes that people inherit from their parents) and nurture (the way their parents brought them up). Neither of these extreme positions stood up to scrutiny and they eventually gave way to a compromise solution: nature + nurture. Half nature, half nurture. This compromise is now an accepted belief, widely held by scientists and nonscientists alike.

But the compromise solution is wrong, too. Genes do indeed make people turn out something like their parents, but the way their parents brought them up does not. So nature + nurture is wrong: it's nature + something else.

The evidence has been piling up since the 1970s; by now it's overwhelming. And yet few people outside of psychology know about this evidence, and even within psychology only a minority have come to terms with it.

You asked for "examples of wrong scientific beliefs that we've already learned were wrong." But who is "we"? A few thousand people have learned that the belief in nature + nurture is wrong, but most people haven't.

Monday Quotations

11/22/10.

"The heart of man is made to reconcile the most glaring contradictions."

--- David Hume (1711-1776)


"It should be noted that children at play are not playing about; their games should be seen as their most serious-minded activity."

--- Montaigne (1533 - 1592)


"There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people."

--- Adam Smith (1723 - 1790)

"It's All Your Fault"

111/22/10. Psychiatrist Theodore Dalrmple enlightens us about the many sides of resentment.

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/71383/sec_id/71383

"Doing Battle with the ADHD Industrial Complex"

11/21/10.

 Katherine Ellison writes:

"As the mother of a teenager who got a diagnosis of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in 2004, I wasn't surprised to read the new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that said the number of ADHD cases in children jumped by 22 percent between 2003 and 2007 - an increase of 1 million kids."...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/19/AR2010111902894_pf.html

World Clock

11/20/10. http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

Psychopathy - Socially Challenging

11/20/10.

"WHAT makes people psychopaths is not an idle question. Prisons are packed with them. So, according to some, are boardrooms. The combination of a propensity for impulsive risk-taking with a lack of guilt and shame (the two main characteristics of psychopathy) may lead, according to circumstances, to a criminal career or a business one. That has provoked a debate about whether the phenomenon is an aberration, or whether natural selection favours it, at least when it is rare in a population. The boardroom, after all, is a desirable place to be—and before the invention of prisons, even crime might often have paid."

http://www.economist.com/node/17460702

"The Anti-Semite's Pointed Finger"

11/18/10. Ruth R. Wisse, professor of Yiddish and comparative literature at Harvard University delivered that talk in August at the Conference of the Yale Interdisciplinary Initiative for the Study of Anti-Semitism.

"How Jews have been tricked into believing they can cure the hatred of them when the hatred has always existed because it is politically useful for the haters."

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/the-anti-semite-s-pointed-finger-15563

"When the Mind Wanders, Happiness Also Strays"

11/15/10. The ability to concentrate, focus, and lose yourself in the challenge of an activity are key components of the pursuit of happiness.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/science/16tier.html?_r=1&hpw

Monday Quotations

11/15/10.

"Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind."

--- W. Somerset Maugham (1974 - 1965)


"In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves:  the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy."

--- Ivan Illich (1926 - 2002)


"Falsehood has a perennial spring."

--- Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797)

Robert Sapolsky: "This is Your Brain on Metaphors"

11/15/10.  Robert Sapolsky is John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn Professor of Biology, Neurology and Neurosurgery at Stanford University, and a research associate at the Institute of Primate Research, National Museums of Kenya.

Professor Sapolsky is the author of "Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers."

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/this-is-your-brain-on-metaphors/?pagemode=print

"Desire in the Twilight of Life"

11/13/10. Mark Lachs, a Professor of Clinical Medicine and a Director of Geriatrics writes:

"Despite the stereotypes and bad jokes, intimacy is alive and well in our aging population."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703848204575608663772413510.html?KEYWORDS=desire+in+the+twilight+of+life

Nearly 1 in 10 U.S. Kids Have ADHD, Study Finds

11/11/10. These results about ADHD are based on a survey of parents of children age 4 through 17, completed at The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The survey covered 73,000 children, in kids of all races and family income levels, and across all regions of the country except the West. Of note, about half of the sample who had ADHD, had a mild form of the disorder.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703805004575606793870558632.html?KEYWORDS=adhd

RECOMMENDED READING: "Self Comes to Mind"

11/11/10. A core question in understanding people is:

How Does the Brain Create the Mind?

The short answer is:  We don't know.

In his new book "Self Comes to Mind," Antonio Damasio begins to outline the answer to this core question. Dr. Damasio is the David Dornsife Professor of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Neurology, and director of the Brain and Creativity Institute at the University of Southern California.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103713700

The Next Wave of Urban Reform

11/9/10. Newark and Detroit.

http://www.city-journal.org/2010/20_4_urban-reform.html

Best Books of 2010

11/8/10. Do you have any favorite books to recommend?

http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=2486012011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=right-csm-3&pf_rd_r=0Z5WZBV3RGDQSX5ZN7GY&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1278200082&pf_rd_i=507846

Why Philosophy?

11/8/10.

Steve Pyke has been photographing philosophers for more than two decades. In compiling his work for an upcoming book, Mr. Pyke asked his subjects why they had spent their lives in philosophy. Click on each portrait to read their statements.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/11/01/opinion/20101101_Stone_Profile.html

Monday Quotations

11/8/10.

“Hypocrisy is a tribute which vice pays to virtue.”

--- Francois, Sixth Duc de la Rochefoucauld (1615 – 1680)


“The man who believes he can live without others is mistaken; and the man who thinks others can’t live without him is more mistaken.”

--- Hasidic saying


“Beware of charisma…’Representative Men’ was Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1850 phrase for the great men in a democracy….Is there some common quality among these Representative Men who have been most successful as our leaders? I call it the need to be authentic---or, as our dictionaries tell us, ‘conforming to fact and therefore worthy of trust, reliance or belief.’ While the charismatic has an uncanny outside source of strength, the authentic is strong because he is what he seems to be.”

---Daniel J. Boorstin (1914 – 2004)

Maps for the 21rst Century

11/6/10.

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge330.html

"Mother Madness"

11/6/10. Novelist - "Fear of Flying," et al. Erica Jong on what's the matter with mothers today.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704462704575590603553674296.html?KEYWORDS=erica+jong

"Did Physics Kill God?"

11/5/10. More on the never-ending struggles between science and religion. I wonder what would happen if we discovered that G-d is a scientist.

http://www.american.com/archive/2010/november/did-physics-kill-god

"T.S. Eliot and the Demise of the Literary Culture"

11/4/10. Joseph Epstein writes:

"No one writing in the English language is likely to establish a reigning authority over poetry and criticism and literature in general as T.S. Eliot did between the early 1930s and his death in 1965 at the age of 77...

...Eliot was the equivalent in literature of Albert Einstein in science in that everyone seemed to know that these men were immensely significant without quite knowing for what." ...

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/t-s--eliot-and-the-demise-of-the-literary-culture-15564

"A Delta Drifter Keeps His Southern Accent"

11/3/10. Mose Allison is an original in a time one can ask, "How many originals do you want?"

He is a jazz pianist, a blues singer, a country-music storyteller, and an author of more than 150 songs, including, "My Wife Says She's Out Jogging, But I think She's Running Around."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703846604575448021314855534.html?mod=WSJ_Leisure%26Arts_LEFTFeatures

Alice: Dancing Under the Gallows

11/2/10. Alice is 107 years old this month --- and is the oldest living Holocaust survivor. "Every day is beautiful," she says. The unexplainable miracle of resilience, hope and optimism --- this is.

http://www.youtube.com/user/AliceTheFilm

Monday Quotations

11/01/10.

“Everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation. Between us and everybody else on this planet.”
--- John Guare (1938 - )


“Some people are far more sensitive to resemblances, and far more ready to point out wherein they consist, than others are. They are the wits, the poets, the inventors, the scientific men the practical geniuses. “

--- William James (1842 – 1910)


“There was a young belle of old Natchez
Whose garments were always in patchez.
When comments arose
On the state of her clothes,
She drawled, When Ah itches, Ah scratches!"

--- Ogden Nash (1902 – 1971)

In Praise of Irrational Exuberance"

10/29/10. Virginia Postrel describes the entrepreneurial drive to create one's dreams in the marketplace.

http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/columns/virginia-postrel/in-praise-of-irrational-exuberance

Useful Dog Tricks - video

10/28/10.

http://www.wimp.com/usefultricks/

Monday Quotations

10/25/10.

"Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christmas without hell."
--- Frank Borman (1928 - )

"Angles can fly because they can take themselves lightly."
--- G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

"The best ideas come from jokes. Make your thinking as funny as possible."
--- David Ogilvy (1785 - 1849)

"Life is short, the art long."
--- Hippocrates (460 B.C. - 357 B.C.)

"In my youth ...there were certain words you couldn't say in front of a girl; now you can say them, but you can't say 'girl.'"
--- Tom Lehrer (1928 - )

"Age is a high price to pay for maturity."
--- Tom Stoppard (1937 - )

"What Tea Partiers Really Want"

10/23/10. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt offers a fair-minded answer.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703673604575550243700895762.html

"In Chile, the Lessons of Isolation"

10/23/10. Psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple writes: "The performance of the miners shows that humans are not wolves, set to descend upon each other."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704779704575553943328901802.html?KEYWORDS=theodore+dalrymple

"Studying the Biases of Bureaucrats"

10/23/10. Matt Ridley describes the hidden costs of government regulations.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304410504575560323807741154.html?KEYWORDS=matt+ridley

"Detroit's Renewal, Slow Cooked"

10/20/10. Small doses of optimism for Motown.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/20/dining/20Detroit.html?src=me&ref=homepage

Scale of the Universe

10/19/10. Our place in the world is hard to imagine.

http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/

"Bringing in Family to Combat Anorexia"

10/18/10. Not a new idea to bring in the family to treat anorexia. But if you wait long enough, many old ideas become new discoveries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/19/health/research/19anorexia.html?_r=1&hpw

Monday Quotations

10/18/10

"Gentleman, include me out."

"I read part of it all the way through."

"A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."

--- Samuel Goldwyn (Samuel Goldfish) (1882 - 1974)


"It is not contrary to reason to prefer the destruction of the whole world to the scratching of my finger."

--- David Hume (1711 - 1776)

"The Civic Education America Needs"

10/18/10. Victor Davis Hanson ---- nobody says it better

http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_3_the_civic.html

The Biggest Big Question of All

10/18/10. Skeptic Magazine editor and psychologist Michael Shermer answer the big question.

http://www.bigquestionsonline.com/columns/michael-shermer/the-biggest-big-question-of-all

WSJ Henninger: "Capitalism Saved the Miners"

10/13/10. Read this article and weep ---- tears of joy. And give thanks to the profit motive that created the
equipment that allowed the rescue of the 33 miners, buried 2,000 feet.

WSJ deputy editor Daniel Henninger highlights some obvious truths about capitalism --- that often elude the elite class:

Henninger writes:

..."It needs to be said. The rescue of the Chilean miners is a smashing victory for free-market capitalism.
Amid the boundless human joy of the miners' liberation, it may seem churlish to make such a claim. It is churlish. These are churlish times, and the stakes are high.

"In the United States, with 9.6% unemployment, a notably angry electorate will go to the polls shortly and dump one political party in favor of the other, on which no love is lost.

"The president of the U.S. is campaigning across the country making this statement at nearly every stop:"


'The basic idea is that if we put our blind faith in the market and we let corporations do whatever they want and we leave everybody else to fend for themselves, then America somehow automatically is going to grow and prosper.'

"Uh, yeah. That's a caricature of the basic idea, but basically that's right. Ask the miners."
"If those miners had been trapped a half-mile down like this 25 years ago anywhere on earth, they would be dead. What happened over the past 25 years that meant the difference between life and death for those men?"

"Short answer: the Center Rock drill bit."

"This is the miracle bit that drilled down to the trapped miners. Center Rock Inc. is a private company in Berlin, Pa. It has 74 employees. The drill's rig came from Schramm Inc. in West Chester, Pa. Seeing the disaster, Center Rock's president, Brandon Fisher, called the Chileans to offer his drill. Chile accepted. The miners are alive."...

Two cheers for Capitalism.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703673604575550322091167574.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Monday Quotations

10/11/10.

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

--- Max Planck (1858 – 1838)


“The eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility…The fact that it is comprehensible is a miracle.”

--- Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955).


“I firmly disbelieve, myself, that our human experience is the highest form of experience extant in the universe. I believe rather that we stand in much the same relationship to the whole of the universe as our canine and feline pets do to the whole of human life. They inhabit our drawing-rooms and libraries. They take part in scenes of whose significance they have no inkling. They are merely tangent to curves of history the beginnings and ends and forms of which pass wholly beyond their ken. So we are tangent to the life of things.”

--- William James (1842 – 1910)

Benny Gurvitz R.I.P. --- 10/10/10

10/10/10. Ben would have been 100 years old today --- we were all planning a party to celebrate his remarkable spirit.

Over the years, Ben said he was going to live to be a 100, "because when I turned 50, I felt half-dead."

Ben said at his age, G-d was a local call...now, I'm sure Ben has a direct line "to the man upstairs."

Below is a link to Benny's stand-up comedy riff he gave at his 99th birthday party.

When we hear G-d laugh, we know who's telling the jokes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EopGBkqxees


My article about Benny in the Michigan Psychological Association Newsletter, 4th quarter, 1997:


                                                       My Friend Benny
Psychiatrist George E. Vaillant, who recently spoke at our Fall Convention on aging well, has said that mature humor allows us to look directly at what is painful. Humor, he says, permits the expression of emotion without individual discomfort and without unpleasant effects upon others and he adds that miraculously humor transforms pain into the ridiculous. (1)

I think Vaillant would approve of my friend Benny.

Benny is the funniest human being I have ever met. He lives alone, drives a car, plays golf, travels, has lots of friends, and loves to watch sports. There is nothing funny about this list, although Benny says he’s bringing a fire extinguisher to his next birthday when he lights the candles. Benny’s birthday is 10/10/10 --- yeah, he’s 97 years old. As Benny reminds me, at his age, God is a local call.

I met Benny about 10 years ago when our lockers were next to each other at the Jewish Center Health Club. When I found out Benny’s age, I asked him whether he attributes his longevity to regular exercise. He thought for a moment and said, “My attitude towards exercise has always been when I feel the urge to exercise, I lie down and wait until the urge passes.” Benny is a strict vegetarian, although he reminds me that he could walk across the street tomorrow and get run over by a meat truck.

Benny is a retired pharmacist who maintains his license. We have attended our share of Continuing Education Seminars together. I drive, listen and learn, and Benny picks the meetings with the best food.

He reminds me that he is so old that “When I was a kid, the Dead Sea wasn’t even sick.” His family was so poor that “The rainbows in my neighborhood were in black and white.”

Benny brings to mind the emerging field of positive psychology with the focus on the study of positive subjective experiences and the study of positive individual traits.

In their 800 page book on positive psychology classifying strengths and virtues, Peterson and Seligman (2) offer a “Manual of The Sanities,” that includes chapters on the following strengths:

• Wisdom and Knowledge
• Courage
• Humanity
• Justice
• Temperance
• Transcendence

In this book, Willibald Ruch (3) writes the serious and informative chapter on humor – under Transcendence – which makes me think of Benny. Ruch writes that individuals with the humor strength strongly endorse such statements as the following:

• Whenever my friends are in a gloomy mood, I try to tease them out of it.
• I welcome the opportunity to brighten someone else’s day with laughter.
• Most people would say I am fun to be with.
• I try to add humor to whatever I do.
• I never allow a gloomy situation to take away my sense of humor.
• I can usually find something to laugh or joke about even in trying situations.

No doubt psychologists use humor often in their work. Humor does much to buffer life stress and hassles, reminds us that “we are more simply human than otherwise,” (4) and helps us re-interpret life-story events for our patients to promote hope and optimism.

Benny sets the bar high as an example of hope and optimism. He once quipped that he knew he was going to live to be 100 “Because when I turned 50, I felt half dead.”

As you can imagine, Benny has weathered his share of tragedies and losses. Benny claims that the only exercise he gets these days is being a pallbearer. He mentioned he went to a party last weekend and he was the only one there with his original hips.

I wish I had enough space here to tell you more about Benny. But Benny is one resilient human being who treasures each day, never complains, and helps everyone who knows him stay optimistic about the species. Researchers and clinicians at the ground level of the new Positive Psychology movement are working to discover how to nourish and develop our character strengths and virtues. It is time we had a Manual of The Sanities.

References:

(1) Vaillant, George E. Aging Well. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002, pages 62 – 63.
(2) Peterson, Christopher, & Seligman, Martin E. P. Character Strengths and Virtues. A Handbook and Classification. Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association and Oxford University Press, Inc., 2004.
(3) Ruch, Willibaud. Humor. In Christopher Peterson & Martin E.P. Seligman. Character Strengths and Virtues. A Handbook of Classification. Washington D. C.: American Psychological Association and Oxford University Press, Inc., 2004. Pages 583 – 598.
(4) Harry Stack Sullivan.

Friday Quotation

10/8/10.

 

The Ten Carrots:

1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
3. You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
4. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
5. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
6. You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
7. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
9. You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
10. And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

 

--- William J.H. Boetcker (1873 - 1962). published 1916.

"A Light in Oslo"

10/8/10. Guy Sorman writes:  "The Nobel Foundation does itself proud by honoring Liu Xiaobo and Mario Vargas Llosa."

http://www.city-journal.org/

ADHD, Genes, and Stigma

10/7/10. The intangible becomes more real.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19528-have-gene-findings-taken-the-stigma-from-adhd.html