Fast and Slow: Pondering the Speed of Thought...and more...

1/10/12. Psychologist Daniel Kahneman on NPR.

http://www.npr.org/2011/10/27/141508854/fast-and-slow-pondering-the-speed-of-thought

Have your opinions regarding human nature changed over with years?

1/9/12.

Steven J. Ceresnie writes:

Yes. My current view is that human nature is deeply woven with contradictions, conflicts, and discontents. Genetics and environments are equally important contributions to understanding human nature. The proper use of reason is to recognize reason's limitations. Reason is the rider holding the reins on the elephant of unconscious desires and values. Understanding human nature springs from the mystery of consciousness, the basic experience of humans on which our social and personal relationships rest. We do not understand how consciousness is produced, nor do we understand its full potential. There is little science that applies to our understanding of human nature. So our understanding of human nature takes the form of stories, religions, ideologies, and beliefs.

How have your opinions regarding human nature changed over the years?

Forgiveness is a Kind of Wild Justice

1/7/12. Dr. Theodore Dalrymple muses about forgiveness and justice.

"Recently I was asked at a public discussion of crime and punishment at which I was a speaker whether I thought it was right that the government (in Britain) had made it illegal for an employer to ask a prospective employee whether he had a criminal record and, if so, its nature and extent. This is a question that I have turned over in my mind, or at least let bubble away in my subconscious, ever since, for it in turn raises several interesting and important questions..."

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/104668/sec_id/104668

Interview with Stephen Hawking

1/7/12.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328460.500-stephen-hawking-at-70-exclusive-interview.html

Breaking Out of Our Righteous Minds

1/7/12.

Psychologist Jonathan Haidt on morality and self-righteous beliefs.

Professor Haidt:

"When I say that human nature is selfish, I mean that our minds contain a variety of mental mechanisms that make us adept at promoting our own interests, in competition with our peers. When I say that human nature is also groupish, I mean that our minds contain a variety of mental mechanisms that make us adept at promoting our group’s interests, in competition with other groups. We are not saints, but we are sometimes good team players.” This is what people who had studied morality had not realized, “that we evolved not just so I can treat you well or compete with you, but at the same time we can compete with them.”

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/12/08/jonathan-haidt-the-moral-matrix-breaking-out-of-our-righteous-minds/

American Psychological Association: Your Mind and Body

1/7/12. Experienced psychologists write about what's on their mind ---- and body.

http://www.yourmindyourbody.org/

Charles Murray: Belmont and Fishtown

1/7/12.

"American exceptionalism is not just something that Americans claim for themselves. Historically, Americans have been seen as different, even peculiar, to people around the world.1 I am thinking of qualities such as American industriousness—not just hard work, but the way that Americans have treated their work and their efforts to get ahead in life as a central expression of who they are. There is American neighborliness. Many cultures have traditions of generous hospitality to guests, but widespread voluntary mutual assistance among unrelated people who happen to live alongside each other has been rare. In the United States, it has been ubiquitous. I am thinking also of qualities such as American optimism, present even when there doesn’t seem to be any good reason for it; our striking lack of class envy; the assumption by most Americans that they are in control of their own destinies; and our famous naïveté in assuming the best of a random person that we come across. Finally, there is the most lovable of exceptional American qualities: our tradition of insisting that we are part of the middle class, even if we aren’t, and of interacting with our fellow citizens as if we were all middle class..."

http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Belmont---Fishtown-7250

Don Carter RIP

1/7/12. A bowler's bowler.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/07/sports/don-carter-first-big-star-of-bowling-dies-at-85.html?_r=1&hpw

Why anti-Semitism is moving towards the mainstream

1/6/12. Alan Dershowitz tells the truth.

"For the first time since the end of World War II, classic anti-Semitic tropes – “the Jews” control the world and are to blame for everything that goes wrong, including the financial crisis; “The Jews killed Christian children in order to use the blood to bake matza; the Holocaust never happened – are becoming acceptable and legitimate subjects for academic and political discussion..."

http://frontpagemag.com/2012/01/04/why-anti-semitism-is-moving-toward-the-mainstream/

Buff Your Brain

1/4/2012.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/01/buff-your-brain.html

The Joy of Quiet

1/2/12.  Amen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/opinion/sunday/the-joy-of-quiet.html?_r=1&sq=Pico%20Iyer&st=cse&scp=2&pagewanted=all

A Conversation between David Brooks and Walter Mischel

12/31/11. Two wise men talking.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/obsonline/news-from-psychological-science-a-conversation-between-david-brooks-and-walter-mischel.html

The Periodic Table

12/31/11. I wonder what elements would constitute a periodic table in psychology.

http://www.ptable.com/

War No More

12/31/11. On psychologist Steven Pinker.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136957/timothy-snyder/war-no-more?page=show

Trial and Errors: Why Science is Failing Us

12/30/11.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/12/ff_causation/all/1

Are we alone in the universe?

12/30/11. Charles Krauthammer wonders why we have not discovered life on other planets.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/are-we-alone-in-the-universe/2011/12/29/gIQA2wSOPP_story.html

Writers Pick Their Top Ten Favorite Books

12/29/11.

http://toptenbooks.net/authorslists

The Way the Brain Buys

12/28/11. The psychology of shopping. We have come a long way since Vance Packard wrote "The Hidden Persuaders" in 1957.

http://www.economist.com/node/12792420

Antonio Damsio: The Quest to Understand Consciousness

12/28/11. How does the brain create the mind?

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

Going Pogo

12/28/11. The life and times of Walt Kelly's Pogo.

"On the first Earth Day, in 1970, a cartoon poster appeared at rallies in all 50 states. It showed a rueful opossum picking up papers, bottles, cans, wrappers—the detritus of modern life. Superimposed on the image were the words WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US..."

http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_4_urb-walt-kelly.html

Thomas Sowell: Observations on the Passing Scene

12/27/11. Economist Thomas Sowell --- random thoughts on the political landscape.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/12/27/random_thoughts_112538.html

If Your Teeth Could Talk...

12/27/11. Your oral health tells an oral history.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203686204577112893077146940.html?KEYWORDS=dentistry

Essaying Epstein

12/22/11.

"Books of essays don’t sell, an editor once told me, so don’t send me one. Joseph Epstein, who considers the label “essayist” an honorific and who himself has been one of the editors of the annual series, The Best American Essays, has compared the essayist’s place in the realm of literature to a seat at the children’s table at the family holiday dinner. Not to get too snooty about it, as Joe Epstein might say, the essay deserves a better seat than that, maybe even one at the high table..."

http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1171

Web site: Association for Psychological Science

12/20/11.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/

What is the Single Best Thing You Can Do for Your Health?

12/19/11. To life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUaInS6HIGo

Twelve Months of Reading

12/18/11.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204466004577102800650505034.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLESecondBucket

Decline in Democratic Control and Faith in Market Capitalism?

12/18/11. From Irwin Stelzer.
 
“Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. It doesn’t work.”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/decline-democratic-control-and-faith-market-capitalism_613447.html

The Community for Psychologists in Independent Practice

12/18/11. From Division 42 - Independent Practice - American Psychological Association.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/J5qWP-EMSRQ

Chirstopher Hitchens RIP

12/16/11.

NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/arts/christopher-hitchens-is-dead-at-62-obituary.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

David Frum:

http://www.frumforum.com/christopher-hitchens-1949%E2%80%932011


Julian Barnes:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2011/12/christopher_hitchens_death_the_novelist_julian_barnes_on_a_memorable_conversation_he_had_with_hitch_.html


Christopher Buckley:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2011/12/postscript-christopher-hitchens.html


Matt Labash:

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/hitchless-world_613396.html

The Twice-Victimized of Sexual Assault

12/12/11.

Jane Brody:

"Nearly every woman I know can recall one or more instances in which she was sexually assaulted, harassed, threatened, inappropriately touched or even raped..."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/health/the-twice-victimized-of-sexual-assault.html?_r=1&ref=health

Global Warming and Adaptability

12/11/11. The heat is on.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203413304577086361984880468.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

The Excellence Gap

12/11/11. How do we improve our public schools?

http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_4_academic-excellence.html

Book Review: Magical Mathematics

12/10/11. So how many times must you shuffle a deck of cards to produce randomness?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204826704577074501731476934.html?KEYWORDS=magic+and+math

Matt Ridley: The market as an antidote to capitalism

12/9/11.

http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/market-antidote-capitalism

The Economist: Best Books of 2011

12/9/11, Page-turners.

http://www.economist.com/node/21541386

Obama's Godfather Speech

12/8/11.  A shovel-ready snow job:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203413304577084292119160060.html

and,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obamas-campaign-for-class-resentment/2011/12/08/gIQApYDagO_story.html

and,

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obamas-thing-gruel-osawatomie/247271

and,

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/obamas-thing-gruel-osawatomie/247271

and,

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/285409/statist-delusions-mark-steyn

and,

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/08/barack-obama-political-hack/

My Holiday Book Recommendations

12/6/11. Some of my recent favorite books:

Darlymple, Theodore. "Life at the Bottom. The Worldview that Makes the Underclass."

Epstein, Joseph. "Gossip."

Gazzanaga, Michael. "Who's in Charge?  Free Will and the Science of the Brain."

Kagan, Jerome. "The Temperamental Thread. How Genes, Culture, Time and Luck Make Us Who We Are."

Markel, Howard. "An Anatomy of Addiction. Sigmund Freud, William Halsted, and the Miracle of Cocaine."

The Myth of Multiple Personality Disorder

12/6/11. How can so many people be so wrong?  Easy. Science is filled with beliefs masquerading as facts.


http://io9.com/5865263/whats-the-truth-behind-multiple-personality-disorder?tag=psychology

On Thomas Sowell

12/6/11. Economist Thomas Sowell is a national treasure. His book "Conflict of Visions" is my favorite.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/article/thomas-sowell-peerless-nerd/

Theodore Dalrymple: Barbarians on the Thames

12/6/11. A postmortem of the British riots. 

http://www.city-journal.org/2011/21_4_otbie-british-riots.html

Elisabeth Young-Bruehl RIP

12/6/11. Of her many books, I enjoyed her study of Anna Freud, the youngest of Sigmund Freud's six children.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/us/elisabeth-young-bruehl-65-dies-probed-roots-of-ideology-and-bias.html?_r=1&hpw

NYT: 100 Notable Books of 2011

12/6/11. http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/review/index.html

What is your favorite book(s) from last year?

Book Review: "Gossip," by Joseph Epstein

12/6/11. On the untrivial pursuit - gossip.


http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2011/12/gossip_the_untrivial_pursuit_reviewed_joseph_epstein_s_book_on_gossip.single.html

Wall Street on Trial

12/6/11. Andrew Klavan talking about my generation --- and others.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/wallstreetontrial/?play

To Dream, Perchance to Consolidate Memories

12/4/11.  Matt Ridley writes about sleep, dreaming, and memory.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203802204577066321124757932.html?KEYWORDS=dream+matt+ridley

Wally Prechter on Bipolar Disorder: Adding Knowledge and Reducing Stigma

12/1/11. Paul W. Smith from WJR Radio interviews Wally Prechter about Bipolar Disorder.

http://www.wjr.com/FlashPlayer/default.asp?SPID=34612&ID=2294622

Herman Cain --- Two Views

11/30/11. On the drive into work today, I heard an interview on NPR about Herman Cain. One person interviewed was a pastor, and he offered his opinion about the morality of what Cain thought he was able to get away with. The other person interviewed was the CEO of a Web site that arranges affairs between married people --- who thought moral judgments should not apply to Mr. Cain.

What do you think? 

The Great Global Warming Fizzle

11/29/11. Some say global warning attracts a religious following. When is that last time a religious group disbanded for lack of evidence supporting the tenets of their beliefs?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2011/11/qa-steven-pinker-0

Inflating Your IQ

11/29/11. Charting our IQs started in the early 1900's with the invention of tests to measure children's progress in school. These tests proved necessary because relying on teachers' judgements were often misguided. The standard IQ test measures verbal reasoning, perceptual organization, working memory, and visual processing. Much can be learned from an IQ assessments in the diagnosis and treatment of psychological disorders and learning disabilities. As yet, we have no valid measures for creativity.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203935604577066293669642830.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

A Psychoanalyst Examines President Obama

11/28/11. Everybody wants to get in the act --- dreams of a psychoanalyst.

http://www.tnr.com/article/97758/obama-insular-psychology

Why Our Brains Make Us Laugh

11/25/11. A new theory of humor.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2011/11/20/why-our-brains-make-laugh/l0OWxVcnRpzfyIheFgab5N/story.html

Inspiring Elderly Learners

11/23/11. You can teach on an old dog new tricks.

http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2011/11/22/11-elderly-learners-who-are-incredibly-inspiring/

Nudge thyself

11/21/11. Deceit and self-deception go together like a horse and carriage.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/78fef17e-0f8a-11e1-88cc-00144feabdc0.html

Neuroscience Challenges Old Ideas about Free Will

11/22/11.

We have to believe in free will. We've got no choice.
---Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902 - 1991)

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=free-will-and-the-brain-michael-gazzaniga-interview

Joshua Walters: On being just crazy enough

11/21/11. Joshua Walters - a self-described bipolar comedian - gives a provocative talk about mental illness and creativity.

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

Alexander Tsiaras: Conception to Birth - Visualized

11/21/11. A magical, visual tour of the unfolding of the genetic blueprints of a human being - to marvelous for words.

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

Jonah Lehrer: How Does Prozac Work?

11/21/11.  Is our brain to complicated to imagine?

What’s the point of neuroscience? Why do we spend billions of dollars investigating those three pounds of flesh inside the head? Sure, human nature is interesting, and self-knowledge is a virtuous pursuit, but let’s be honest: we study the brain because we don’t want to die. Because we want cures for awful afflictions. Because we’re desperate to avoid depression and addiction and dementia. The only way to justify the terrific expense of biomedical research is medicine.
Here’s the bad news: I think neuroscience has yet to deliver on its therapeutical potential. We’ve learned an astonishing amount about the brain in recent years – a ten year old textbook is totally obsolete – but all this shiny new knowledge has yet to heal us. As a result, we’re still stuck with pills and treatments that are frustratingly ineffective.
Consider depression. Every year, approximately 7 percent of us will be afflicted to some degree by the awful mental state that William Styron described as a “gray drizzle of horror . . . a storm of murk.” This is a big societal problem, which is why 24.4 million prescriptions were filled for fluoxetine (the generic version of Prozac) in 2010 in America.
The first thing to say about fluoxetine is that it’s an old drug, having been introduced in the early 1970s. (Like many medical treatments, it was discovered largely by accident, when researchers realized that a common anti-histamine had anti-depressant properties.) Until recently, scientists assumed they knew how fluoxetine/Prozac worked. The story was simple: depression results from a neurotransmitter imbalance in the brain, in which patients suffer from a shortage of chemical happiness. The little blue pills cheer us up because they give the brain what it has been missing – a dose of serotonin.
There’s only one problem with this theory of anti-depressants: it’s almost certainly wrong, or at the very least woefully incomplete. Experiments have since shown that lowering people’s serotonin levels does not make them depressed, nor does it worsen their symptoms if they are already depressed. And then there’s the “Prozac lag”: although anti-depressants increase the amount of serotonin in the brain within hours, their beneficial effects are not usually felt for weeks.
Despite our causal ignorance, anti-depressants remain an essential balm for millions of people, allowing them to escape from that recursive loop of woe. And yet, it’s also clear that anti-depressants are
often disturbingly ineffective and, in many clinical trials, appear little better than a placebo. (See Irving Kirsch for a partiuclarly critical take.)
Furthermore, even when the drugs prove effective, their efficacy remains mysterious. Although there are some exciting new hypotheses about the power of Prozac – I’m particularly interested in the neurogenesis story – we still don’t understand why this category of drugs is the best we’ve got, even after forty years of well funded R&D. (Of course, this mystery hasn’t interfered with the popularity of the pills: As Schopenhauer once noted, people tend to treat causes “like a hired cab that one dismisses when one reaches the destination.” All we really care about is the health benefit – the causal story is just a sales ploy, a way to reassure patients that our success isn’t dumb luck, even when it is.)
And this returns us to the current state of neuroscientific research into depression. Last week, the field recieved a jolt of bad news: a hyped new compound from Glaxo (GSK372475) proved utterly useless. In two well done clinical trials, the drug failed to make people feel better.
Why is this news? Drugs fail all the time. (According to one recent analysis, more than 40 percent of drugs fail Phase III clinical trials. The odds are even worse for brain pills.) What makes the dismissal of GSK372475 noteworthy is that it looked so good on paper. The molecule is a potent triple reuptake inhibitor (TRI), blocking the breakdown of serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine. While Prozac only alters serotonin, other successful anti-depressants, such as venlafaxine, block the reuptake of serotonin and noradrenaline. So it seemed like a good idea to also interfere with the reuptake of dopamine, especially since decades of research have suggested that more dopamine in the synapse is reliably associated with feelings of pleasure and reward. (Why do you think cocaine feels nice?) Although we still don’t understand how blocking the reuptake of various neurotransmitters cheers us up, we have yet to improve on that mechanism of action, which is why drug companies are still investing in expensive clinical trials for reuptake inhibitors.
But that logic didn’t pan out. Not only did depressed patients on GSK372475 get better more slowly than those on placebo, they were also hit with a bevy of side-effects, including insomnia and nausea.
Pharmaceutical failures like this are a sobering reminder that the brain and its afflictions remain deeply mysterious. Despite the billions of dollars poured into depression research, we still don’t understand the causal mechanisms of the illness, which means we don’t even know which drug actions to screen for. We can’t even imitate our past successes.
Given such struggles, it’s not surprising that drug companies are dramatically scaling back research into the brain. (Most recently, four leading drug firms, including Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, announced that they were cutting neuroscience R&D. They cited the disconnect between scientific funding and pharmaceutical sucess.) The organ is simply too complicated, too full of networks and pathways we don’t comprehend.
I don’t want to overdo the pessimism – betting against science is a losing game. But I think we need to be honest about the payoff of basic research, at least so far. We’ve learned so much, but we have yet to learn what really matters, whether it’s the neural underpinnings of depression or the triggers of Alzheimer’s or the genetic snippets behind, well, everything. The brain isn’t just complicated – it seems to be more complicated than we can imagine.
So how does Prozac work? The sad answer is that we’re still not sure. And that means we don’t know how to come up with something better.
PS. The Neuroskeptic has a typically great post on the failed trial.

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

Woody Allen, American Master

11/21/11. One of a kind.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2011/11/woody-allen-american-masters.html

Metapsychology: Book Reviews

11/19/20. A Web site of reviews of psychology books.

http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_index.php?idx=news

Medication for Mental Health

11/19/11. Sometimes psychiatric medication is essential for psychological treatment. For example, people with major depressive disorder, ADHD, and anxieties often benefit from medication.

Psychological therapy is often a crucial component of effective psychological treatment. Many people take psychiatric medication --- for a while --- give up, and never reap the benefits of psychological therapy.

For some people, until we have biological markers for psychological disorders, no amount of research and clinical knowledge will propel people to get the psychological treatment they need.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2062634/One-American-women-medication-mental-disorder.html

Earth: Time Lapse View from Space

11/14/11. It does look round.

http://vimeo.com/32001208

PBS Special: A Nazi Story That Still Surprises

11/14/11. On TV this Tuesday (11/15/11) evening.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204358004577030131740812396.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopBucket

Mrs. Radosh and Hyman.

11/11/11.

Mrs. Radosh says to the rabbi, My husband keeps shrinking! When we married he was five foot eight, and now he’s five foot four. Can you say a blessing for him?

Of course: May he live to be four foot ten.


God agrees to grant Hyman a wish, with the condition that whatever he asks for, his brother-in-law will get double.

Okay, Hyman says,  I wish I were half-dead.

Rethinking Thinking

11/11/11. How does the brain create the mind? 
We don't know.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204618704576642991109496396.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion

Alter Kockers

11/10/11. Do some old Jews know the secret to longevity?

http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/ashkenazi-jews-2011-11/

What are the odds of your existence?

11/10/11. Most people are never born.

http://boingboing.net/2011/11/09/great-moments-in-pedantry-the.html

Daniel Kahneman: The King of Human Error

11/9/11. Psychologist and expert on decision making.

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/12/michael-lewis-201112.print%22

15 fascinating facts about same sex schools

118/11.


http://www.onlinecollegecourses.com/2011/11/08/15-fascinating-facts-about-same-sex-schools/)

New Ways to Stop Bad Behavior

11/8/11. Need to improve your child's self-control?  Read this.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577018223567068482.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read

The Wrong Inequality

11/6/11. David Brooks describes the complexity of inequality.
There is not only income inequality - a serious problem - but also educational and social inequality.
There are no easy answers.


http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/opinion/brooks-the-wrong-inequality.html?_r=1&ref=davidbrooks

David Eagleman: Your Brain Knows a Lot More Than You Realize

11/6/11. Your consciousness or "I" feel likes your driver. For much of your experience, you are the passenger with your unconscious mind at the wheel.

http://discovermagazine.com/2011/sep/18-your-brain-knows-lot-more-than-you-realize

Video Interview with Walter Mischel and David Brooks

11/6/11. David Brooks is a journalist as rare as a Rabbi in Mecca who writes a regular column in the New York Times. Much of his interest focuses on social science applications to practical problems. Walter Mischel is one of the giants in the field of social psychology most famous for his two marshmallows study illustrating the roots of self-control.

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/observer/obsonline/news-from-psychological-science-a-conversation-between-david-brooks-and-walter-mischel.html

Book Review. "A Point in Time: The Search for Redemption in This Life and the Next," by David Horowitz.

11/4/11. David Horowitz took three years to write an elegant, short book drawing from his experience and from the works of Marcus Aurelius and Dostoevsky.  In his youth, Horowitz was a political radical. After his secretary was murdered by the Black Panthers, he began to rethink his ideology. Horowitz is now a political conservative, and understands --- like few people do --- the utopian horrors of his youth.
He meditates on the meaning of life - and death.
http://www.city-journal.org/2011/bc1104td.html

When Geeks Meet

Psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen (cousin of Sascha) draws on his research on autism to predict  what kind of parents produce autistic kids.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111102/full/479025a.html

Retirement Around the World

11/3/11. Young at heart --- 25 fascinating facts about retirement.

http://www.onlinemba.com/blog/retirement-around-the-world-25-fascinating-facts/

Profile of Michael Gazzaniga: Neuroscientist

11/2/11. Professor Gazzaniga' s research has enlightened our minds on such topics as split/brain surgery, the role of the interpreter, and the ethics of neuroscience findings defining the concepts of free-will, responsibility, and accountability.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/01/science/telling-the-story-of-the-brains-cacophony-of-competing-voices.html?_r=1&src=rechp

The Parable of Detroit

10/25/11. Can Motown make a come-back?

http://www.economist.com/node/21533407

Christopher Chabris reviews Daniel Kahneman's book: "Thinking, Fast, & Slow"

10/22/11. On not agreeing with ourselves and other turns of mind.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204479504576639032103005502.html?KEYWORDS=kahneman

DK in the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/dont-blink-the-hazards-of-confidence.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general

The Evolutionary Secret to Making a Hit Record

10/20/11. Rock-and-roll  and Charles Darwin.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/bering-in-mind/2011/08/30/listen-carefully-the-evolutionary-secret-to-making-a-hit-record/

Antidepressant Use in Persons 12 years and Older

10/20/11. Psychiatric medication is no doubt helpful to many.

Psychological therapy is often life-saving. Many people deny themselves the benefits of psychological therapy: understanding your predicaments

• putting your concerns in perspective 
• improving the quality of your relationships
• increasing your creativity 
• enjoying more stable moods
• feeling more alive.

  http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db76.pdf

10 Famous People Who Flourished After Being Laid Off

10/20/11. Sometimes a crises is an opportunity. Recommended by Tina Sans.

http://www.onlinedegreeshub.com/blog/2011/10-famous-people-who-flourished-after-being-laid-off/

How to Find the Right Shrink for You

10/18/11. Finding a good therapist.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204346104576636923254728228.html

My Favorite Web Site: Arts and Letters Daily

10/17/11.

http://www.artsandlettersdaily.com/

New Guidelines for ADHD

10/17/11. The American Academy of Pediatrics has released new guidelines for diagnosing ADHD in children as young as four years old.

A reliable method to diagnose preschool children with ADHD is to count the number of rings under the parents' eyes.

ADHD is a neurophysiological disorder --- children are born with it --- so treating young children with ADHD with medication who do not respond to behavioral methods makes sense.

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-aap-ages-diagnosis-treatment-adhd.html

The Genetics of Happiness: Transporter of delight

10/17/11. Happiness is in your DNA; and different races may have different propensities for it.

When you are getting married, take a good look at your spouse-to-be's family.

http://www.economist.com/node/21532247

Debbie Nathan: "Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case."

10/16/11. The will to believe and deceive.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/magazine/a-girl-not-named-sybil.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

Matthew Nock: 2011 MacArthur "Genius Award" Fellowship

10/15/11. Harvard Psychology Professor Matthew Nock is a leader in the study of self-injurious behavior and has developed computer-based tests to predict the risk of suicide.

http://www.macfound.org/site/c.lkLXJ8MQKrH/b.7730989/k.8320/Matthew_Nock.htm

Woody Allen Reads His Classic Short Stories

10/15/11. My favorite story is "The Whore of MENSA."

http://www.woodyallen.com/projects.html

Paul Simon Interview: On Tour at 70

10/14/11. Still not crazy after all these years.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204002304576626931809026972.html?KEYWORDS=paul+simon

E.O. Wilson's Theory of Everything

10/12/11. Evolutionary biologist 82 year-old E.O. Wilson continues his remarkable career.

I remember being in graduate school when his controversial book, "Sociobiology" was published. Some female psychology professors wanted to  stop Wilson from spreading such "lies" about social behavior, gender, and biology. Wilson responded to criticism with another provocative book, "On Human Nature."

Wilson once said that Karl Marx was right about socialism --- but he was wrong about the species. Marx should have applied his insights to ants --- Wilson's scientific specialty.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/11/e-o-wilson-rsquo-s-theory-of-everything/8686/?single_page=true

A Patient Recommends...

10/12/11. I found this endorsement of my psychological services --- I am grateful to the person who wrote this. Thank you.

http://detroit.momslikeme.com/members/journalactions.aspx?g=190129&m=16178517&si=Comments&pi=2

The Treatment of Brain Trauma

10/11/11. So many people suffer from brain trauma --- yet our evidence of what helps these injured people rehabilitate their cognitive abilities remains uncertain and complicated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/health/12brain.html?hpw

Envy: A Deadly Sin that Rots the Soul

10/11/11. John Tierney explains the fruit and aftertaste of envy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/science/11tierney.html?_r=1&ref=science&pagewanted=print

Raymond Tallis Takes Out the Neurotrash

10/10/11.  Dr. Tallis, a physician and author of 30 books, takes on the neuromaniacs and those afflicted with Darwinitis.

http://chronicle.com/article/Raymond-Tallis-Takes-Out-the/129279/

Jason L. Riley: Candidate Cain's Post-Racial Claim

10/7/11. Cain is not a victim --- he has self-esteem and self-respect.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203388804576614962556506804.html?KEYWORDS=jason+riley

Jonah Lehrer: "Why Do Some People Learn Faster?"

10/6/11.

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

"The physicist Niels Bohr once defined an expert as “a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” Bohr’s quip summarizes one of the essential lessons of learning, which is that people learn how to get it right by getting it wrong again and again. Education isn’t magic. Education is the wisdom wrung from failure.
A new study, forthcoming in Psychological Science, and led by Jason Moser at Michigan State University, expands on this important concept. The question at the heart of the paper is simple: Why are some people so much more effective at learning from their mistakes? After all, everybody screws up. The important part is what happens next. Do we ignore the mistake, brushing it aside for the sake of our self-confidence? Or do we investigate the error, seeking to learn from the snafu?

The Moser experiment is premised on the fact that there are two distinct reactions to mistakes, both of which can be reliably detected using electroenchephalography, or EEG. The first reaction is called error-related negativity (ERN). It appears about 50 milliseconds after a screw-up and is believed to originate in the anterior cingulate cortex, a chunk of tissue that helps monitor behavior, anticipate rewards and regulate attention. This neural reaction is mostly involuntary, the inevitable response to any screw-up.
The second signal, which is known as error positivity (Pe), arrives anywhere between 100-500 milliseconds after the mistake and is associated with awareness. It occurs when we pay attention to the error, dwelling on the disappointing result. In recent years, numerous studies have shown that subjects learn more effectively when their brains demonstrate two properties: 1) a larger ERN signal, suggesting a bigger initial response to the mistake and 2) a more consistent Pe signal, which means that they are probably paying attention to the error, and thus trying to learn from it.
In this new paper, Moser et al. extends this research by looking at how beliefs about learning shape these mostly involuntary error-related signals in the brain, both of which appear in less than half a second. More specifically, the scientists applied a dichotomy first proposed by Carol Dweck, a psychologist at Stanford. In her influential research, Dweck distinguishes between people with a fixed mindset — they tend to agree with statements such as “You have a certain amount of intelligence and cannot do much to change it” — and those with a growth mindset, who believe that we can get better at almost anything, provided we invest the necessary time and energy. While people with a fixed mindset see mistakes as a dismal failure — a sign that we aren’t talented enough for the task in question — those with a growth mindset see mistakes as an essential precursor of knowledge, the engine of education.
The experiment began with a flanker task, a tedious assignment in which subjects are supposed to identify the middle letter of a five-letter series, such as “MMMMM” or “NNMNN.” Sometimes the middle letter is the same as the other four, and sometimes it’s different. This simple change induces frequent mistakes, as the boring task encourages people to zone out. Once they make a mistake, of course, they immediately regret it. There is no excuse for misidentifying a letter.
While performing the flanker task, subjects wore an EEG cap, a monitoring device filled with greased electrodes that records electrical activity in the brain. (Unlike fMRI, EEG gives researchers excellent temporal resolution, allowing them to precisely measure a sequence of neural events. Unfortunately, this comes at the expense of spatial resolution, making it difficult to know where in the brain the signals are coming from.)
It turned out that those subjects with a growth mindset were significantly better at learning from their mistakes. As a result, they showed a spike in accuracy immediately following an error. Most interesting, though, was the EEG data, which demonstrated that those with a growth mindset generated a much larger Pe signal, indicating increased attention to their mistakes. (While those with an extremely fixed mindset generated a Pe amplitude around five, those with a growth mindset were closer to fifteen.) What’s more, this increased Pe signal was nicely correlated with improvement after error, implying that the extra awareness was paying dividends in performance. Because the subjects were thinking about what they got wrong, they learned how to get it right.
In her own research, Dweck has shown that these mindsets have important practical implications. Her most famous study, conducted in twelve different New York City schools along with Claudia Mueller, involved giving more than 400 fifth graders a relatively easy test consisting of nonverbal puzzles. After the children finished the test, the researchers told the students their score, and provided them with a single line of praise. Half of the kids were praised for their intelligence. “You must be smart at this,” the researcher said. The other students were praised for their effort: “You must have worked really hard.”
The students were then allowed to choose between two different subsequent tests. The first choice was described as a more difficult set of puzzles, but the kids were told that they’d learn a lot from attempting it. The other option was an easy test, similar to the test they’d just taken.
When Dweck was designing the experiment, she expected the different forms of praise to have a rather modest effect. After all, it was just one sentence. But it soon became clear that the type of compliment given to the fifth graders dramatically affected their choice of tests. When kids were praised for their effort, nearly 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. However, when kids were praised for their intelligence, most of them went for the easier test. What explains this difference? According to Dweck, praising kids for intelligence encourages them to “look” smart, which means that they shouldn’t risk making a mistake.
Dweck’s next set of experiments showed how this fear of failure can actually inhibit learning. She gave the same fifth graders yet another test. This test was designed to be extremely difficult — it was originally written for eighth graders — but Dweck wanted to see how the kids would respond to the challenge. The students who were initially praised for their effort worked hard at figuring out the puzzles. Kids praised for their smarts, on the other hand, were easily discouraged. Their inevitable mistakes were seen as a sign of failure: Perhaps they really weren’t so smart. After taking this difficult test, the two groups of students were then given the option of looking either at the exams of kids who did worse or those who did better. Students praised for their intelligence almost always chose to bolster their self-esteem by comparing themselves with students who had performed worse on the test. In contrast, kids praised for their hard work were more interested in the higher-scoring exams. They wanted to understand their mistakes, to learn from their errors, to figure out how to do better.
The final round of tests was the same difficulty level as the initial test. Nevertheless, students who were praised for their effort exhibited significant improvement, raising their average score by 30 percent. Because these kids were willing to challenge themselves, even if it meant failing at first, they ended up performing at a much higher level. This result was even more impressive when compared to students randomly assigned to the smart group, who saw their scores drop by nearly 20 percent. The experience of failure had been so discouraging for the “smart” kids that they actually regressed.
The problem with praising kids for their innate intelligence — the “smart” compliment — is that it misrepresents the psychological reality of education. It encourages kids to avoid the most useful kind of learning activities, which is when we learn from our mistakes. Because unless we experience the unpleasant symptoms of being wrong — that surge of Pe activity a few hundred milliseconds after the error, directing our attention to the very thing we’d like to ignore — the mind will never revise its models. We’ll keep on making the same mistakes, forsaking self-improvement for the sake of self-confidence. Samuel Beckett had the right attitude: “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Ken Burns: Prohibition, Drug Laws, and Unintended Consequences

10/3/11. Excellent documentary.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd-40VnMG94

Monday Quotations

10/3/11. From the Skeptical Doctor:

http://www.skepticaldoctor.com/Quotes.html

"Who Would Care About My Story?"

10/2/11. Writing advice from one of the best:  William Zinsser.

http://theamericanscholar.org/who-would-care-about-my-story/

Book Review: The Price of Civilization

10/1/11. Paul Ryan reviews Jeffrey Sachs' "The Price of Civilization."

Competing visions of human nature underlie Sachs' claim that a moral crisis is at the root of America's economic crisis. Sachs, like so many intellectuals who are allergic to capitalism, benefits from the fruits of free enterprise that has lifted-up more humans from poverty than any other economic system.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903703604576589090204327736.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop