Psychology vs. Neuroscience - The Nature-Nurture Debate v.2.0

Once again, a stand-out podcast comes out of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. On All in the Mind -- a discussion and debate on different approaches to the brain, consciousness, and healing. The guests are  Norman Dodge (out of U of T, and just published his book, The Brain That Changes Itself), and Perminder Sachdev, a professor in New South Wales, Australia. 


Norman Dodge is all about 'neuro-plasticity' - meaning that the brain is not this fixed physical thing like we once thought. When you change your thoughts, you actually change your brain physiology. In essence, "talk therapy is neurosurgery".

It points to potential flaws in the way that neuroscience traditionally frames things, with implications on research, policy, and the practice of healing people suffering from a variety of mental challenges. An example he cites -  about the woman who was discovered to only have half a brain. And, basically, she made do. Her one half of the brain took up the slack for the other half. 

Dodge likes to point out in the discussion that concepts like 'mind' and 'consciousness' have no clear meaning - anywhere. The fundamental nature of those phenomenon are still a mystery, and can't be reduced to brain widgets as some neuroscientists are wont to say. At one point Dodge refers to his counterpart on the show (the neuroscientist) as a -gasp - 'reductionist'. Gloves come off! 

You know I do think one difference between the two of us is - well first of all just let me say this - I don't think anybody knows what a thought is although we're all sitting here thinking and I'm doing my best, and we really haven't solved the problem of what conscious awareness is and what thought is. So when we speak about thought, we are in some ways speaking almost symbolically, it's a place-holder. For me the question of the relationship of thought and structure continues to be an open question and I think that there is a reason that this symbolic word "mind", which is difficult to define. But I think you're more of a reductionist that I am from what I can tell.

Of course, this kind of topic would not be complete without some Oliver Sacks-ish observations of bizarre cases, such as the 'alien hand syndrome' where someone lost control over their left hand. One hand would be doing up the shirt, the other unbuttoning it. Worth a listen. (29mins) >> Listen Now

Holding Scientists Accountable for the Bomb

The Manhattan Project led to the creation of the atomic bomb, and the eventual use of it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not to mention the proliferation of nukes capable of destroying the world many times over. Were the scientists wrong to participate in that project? What about now? Is science necessarily blind, and removed from everyday morality, or are scientists responsible for what they unleash on the world?

On The Philosopher's Zone, (Australian Broadcasting Corporation), Alan Saunders interviews Dr John Forge about his book, The Responsible Scientist: A Philosophical Inquiry. In interview, Forge presents a clear-headed and articulate overview of the issues scientists face as they make choices in their careers and in their research.

Saunders, the host of The Philosopher's Zone, has a philosophy background and can stay right with the subject, guiding it nicely along for the listener. It's a great format for a podcast and nobody in the English speaking world is doing anything quite so pointedly philosophical these days. Thanks ABC!

Forge argues that a scientist's ignorance of the future consequences of their research is not a moral defense. They are, he argues, accountable for consequences, and, if they choose to remain blind to what those might be, then, well, they are morally culpable. In much the same way as people who care for others have a duty to prevent harm from happening, including anticipating bad things, so scientists have a duty to prevent harm as they work.

In today's world of rapidly advancing bio-science, pharma, etc..., these are pressing issues. (25 mins) Recommended. >> Listen Now
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23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

The world financial meltdown has spurned on a new interest in re-thinking capitalism and markets. It is clear we need to change something, but what? And who do we turn to for solutions?

The economist Ha-Joon Chang, (well, kind of an anti-economist -- ""Economics, as it has been practised in the last three decades, has been positively harmful for most people"), is out on the circuit promoting his new book, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism. A book which tries to dispel myths about capitalism.

Laurie Taylor, host of BBC's Thinking Allowed podcast talks with Chang about the problems with the current forms of capitalism and the banking sector. It's a short segment (about 15mins), but it is worth listening to, because it gives you an introduction to some fresh ideas.

One of those ideas is that we don't need economists to help us plan and run the economy. That we need to move away from free market ideology and start making decisions as "economic citizens", participating in the process rather than being on the sidelines controlled by systems that have no concern for our well-being and future. He also advocates for very strict curtailing of the financial sector.

Links in this article and further reading

• Review in of Chang's book in The Guardian
• Podcast: Thinking Allowed, "Secrets of Capitalism - Religion and Science"

Are the Boomers to Blame for the Mess We're In? The Generation Conflict

The Baby Boomers have made their mark on history. The question is, what is that mark? Is it a story of squandered resources, and selfishness? Or is it one of progress?  And, does it even make sense to identify a whole generation as an object of blame or praise?

The opportunities available for generations that follow the Boomers (X, Y, Z, etc...) don't seem as varied or rewarding. So much so, that psychologists and researchers are proposing a new life stage, "Emerging Adulthood", to describe the statistics on post-boomer generations. Low-paying jobs, moving back home, starting everything later. They have kids way later, find careers later, make less money, have to move a lot. Basically, 'adulthood' doesn't really start until people are in their 30's now. And, even then, it is hard to make a go of things. For more on "emerging adulthood", see the NY Times, "What is it About Those 20-somethings?"

Not to mention the fact that the world is a bit of a mess. There's massive debt, and a bankrupt environment. Most of the great world ecosystems have been decimated on the Boomer's watch. The Boomers love their stuff, and control, and are hanging on to jobs and positions of power way past the generation that preceded them. They seem to feel entitled, while at the same time, don't feel the pull of the responsibly that goes along with all that they have and hold.

Well, I'm paraphrasing. There are many more claims against the Boomers. And, there are the apologists, those who point to the gains in civil rights, and women's issues that Boomers can rightly claim as theirs. As I eluded earlier, there are also those who think the whole 'generation' thing is just a red-herring.

The Atlantic Monthly is running a piece in their October issue, "The Least We Can Do":

Self-absorbed, self-indulged, and self-loathing, the Baby Boom generation at last has the chance to step out of the so-called Greatest Generation’s historical shadow. Boomers may not have the opportunity to save the world, as their predecessors did, but they can still redeem themselves by saving the American economy from the fiscal mess that they, and their fathers and mothers, are leaving behind.

The author, Michael Kinsley, is a boomer himself, which is a nice touch - you can hear the guilty conscience between the lines. His basic thesis is as described in the teaser: Boomers should, en masse, bail out the world with all of their money. Statistically, they pretty much have all the money. Way more than is needed to get us out of the mess we're in. An interesting position. But, he doesn't get to that position without first putting the Boomers on trial. Definitely worth checking out!


Links in this article and Further Reading

• The Least We can Do (Atlantic, article)  
• What is it About Those Twenty-Somethings? (NY Times article)
• Emerging Adulthood - (video on TVO's The Agenda)
• No Country for Young Men (Atlantic article)

The Atlantic Monthly Online - Worth Checking Out

Magically loaded onto my new Kindle* (see how below), I've been catching up on my reading from publications such as The Atlantic, and The New Yorker which offer up a lot of great, free, content.  In this article I highlight some of The Atlantic's, current article lineup, links included.

The first thing that grabbed me was, "Smaller than Life", a review of Franzen's new book, Freedom. It is one of the most scathing reviews I've read in a long time, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Very funny and very thorough. It's not just about Franzen's work, it's also a commentary on contemporary fiction. It starts:

One opens a new novel and is promptly introduced to some dull minor characters. Tiring of them, one skims ahead to meet the leads, only to realize: those minor characters are the leads. A common experience for even the occasional reader of contemporary fiction, it never fails to make the heart sink. 

Another article is "French Connections", where Marc Herman talks about French cycle touring and how French government incentive programs have created a vast network of lovely off-the-beaten-track hotels, and B&B's that are affordable and charming. Perfect for cycle-touring. I so want to go, now.

And, some excellent (and funny) science journalism. "Fertility Rites" about research being done on chimp sperm. "Chimp sperm may unlock one of the riddles of human conception. But first you have to collect it." LOL funny at times.

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* Downloading online magazines onto your Kindle (or any e-reader)

Download and install a free program called Calibre. Calibre goes online for you and gets all the articles - and packages them up for e-reader consumption, with table of contents and all! It really is magic!

Kindle 3 vs. Kobo: A Hands-On Comparison of E-Readers

Addendum, August 23, 2011 - The New touch-Kobo has arrived... pretty cool... this review is for the old one...
Addendum, Oct 27, 2010 - see also A Month with My Kindle 3.


When I was shopping around for an e-reader, I ended up buying both the Kindle 3 and the Kobo. Reader's Digest version: I took the Kobo back and kept the Kindle. Here's why:

Kobo (The good:)

• The Kobo is elegant. 
• Easy to handle. It is very light, and the shape is easy to hold in one hand over long periods of time. There's space around the screen to hold onto. The soft, quilted back is a great idea. 
• It has a (way) better font than the Kindle 3. 
• Nice touches, like automatically generated footers, which the Kindle doesn't have, make it a more book-like experience. 
• From an aesthetic point of view, a winner. It doesn't look or feel like an over-sized Blackberry. 
• It's compatible with the Library - which means you can take books out of the library website and read them on your device. It's very cool. Kindle can't do that. It has to do with DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Kobo (The bad:)

• The Kobo 'D-pad' which is the main navigation button is pretty loud and not very accurate. By loud, I mean, keep-your-girlfriend-up-at-night loud. 
• The Kobo is slow. When you're in a book, it's OK. What I do is press the advance button on the second last sentence. However, it is when you have a large collection, and you want to navigate to other titles, it becomes painful. Also, within e-magazines, it is hard to flip through them, and skip the pieces you don't like, because there's this huge time lag between page views.
• Adobe Digital Editions. Right now, DRM is a fact of life for store-bought and library e-books (which kind of locks you into certain readers). Kobo uses a 3rd party DRM (Adobe Digital Editions), which, theoretically, seems better because it is possible to buy a Sony reader and use the same ebooks. However, in practice, Adobe DRM can be pretty frustrating. My story: I took some e-books out of the library and put them on my Kobo. Seemed to work. Then, all of a sudden, they were locked and I couldn't read them, and nothing I could do got it to work again. I still had weeks left on them, but *something* happened. I walked through Kobo phone support (not bad, actually), but their usual fixes didn't work. Adobe is impossible to get help from. Still can't access them on my Kobo. So, I thought to myself, what if I had a bunch of books that I BOUGHT and that happened? Doesn't make me want to go out and buy e-books. I've been reading the classics, which are free and don't have DRM.
• Limited Functionality. Lack of keyboard, search, and dictionary. 

Kindle 3 - Wireless Edition (the good)

• Speed. The kindle operates at a speed that makes sense for navigating around your collections. Page turns are quick. It makes downloaded e-magazines much easier to browse.
• Navigation. There are more navigation options with more buttons. With the small keyboard, for example, you can do things, like, jump to your book titles that start with "K".
• Search: I use  this way more than I thought I would. For example, a lot of free classic e-books that you might get from, say, Project Gutenberg, have non-functioning TOCs. With the search, it's easy to just find the section by typing it it into the search box. 
• Dictionary: Just move the cursor to the word you don't know, and, presto: the definition pops up. Another feature that I didn't think I use, but use it all the time.

Kindle 3 Wireless Edition  (the bad)

• Ugly Font. First thing I noticed when I turned it on. Yuck. I suppose it's a matter of taste.
• Slightly Harder to Handle. It's a bit too slim/small. They've tapered the edges making it harder to hold than a Kobo. Along with the proliferation of buttons everywhere, there's not much place for your hands to rest.
• Heavy-handed Amazon control.They actually lock-down certain functionality until you go online and register the unit. Kinda big-brother-ish.
• Browser is Useless.   The browser is pretty much useless for going on the web, so don't let this feature sway your purchase in any way compared to other e-readers. You can go to Wikipedia with a click and search on something. Cool, except that the page takes forever to load, and when it does, it is so small you can hardly read it. They should stick with the reading experience and leave the internet to IPad.

Conclusion
Neither is perfect. It comes down to aesthetics vs. speed/functionality. The Kobo is well-designed but way too slow. Plus, Kobo's Nav-pad is loud and inaccurate. The Kindle isn't pretty, so the aesthetic experience is so-so. But, the Kindle is fast, has a nice screen, has lots of functionality, such as the dictionary, and excellent navigation.  Kindle wins the smackdown.

A note for those concerned about formats and DRM
In general, e-ink is great and they are both good screens. With both, you you can access thousands of free books on the internet. Don't worry about formats on the free books - it's trivial to convert them back and forth with the Cailbre e-book application (free - basically ITunes for Books).

When it comes to buying books, however, it's a different story. DRM (Digital Rights Management), is what all book sellers use to prevent piracy. However, it's not standardized. Which means that you only sort-of own your purchased e-books. You can't read them on a competitor's device. Publishers have made it so that the only way to safely own an e-book that you've legally purchased, is to illegally crack the DRM (allowing you to read it on any device forever into the future). So, which crappy DRM system do you want to get stuck with for your purchased e-books? Hint: there's no good choice. Just read the classics until they get a better system :-)

Addendum, Oct 27, 2010 - see also A Month with My Kindle 3.
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Jonathan Franzen Reads from His New Novel, "Freedom"

There's a lot of talk about Freedom, Jonathan Franzen's followup novel to The Corrections. Apparently TIME Magazine will be putting him on the cover of their magazine. The article in TIME is called, "Jonathan Franzen: Great American Novelist".

Of course, with success comes controversy. Take Franzen's whole debacle with Oprah Winfrey about his comments about being on the Oprah List. This time around, people are talking about whether he deserves the acclaim and also whether or not he is getting more press than if he were a woman.

Anyway, Terry Gross, interviews Franzen on NPR's Fresh Air Podcast, and has him read from his new book. It's a good interview. He talks about the book, his life, and the controversy. He also elucidates his writing process and turning personal issues into narrative, along with the psychological challenges that go along with that.

Listen and Read
>> Listen to the Interview on Fresh Air
>> Read the review in TIME Magazine

The Radiolab Podcast: The Art of the Quick Splice and Overdub

Radiolab is one of my favorite podcasts. They make science and theory topics interesting, by the way that they play with the art of recorded voice, splicing and overdubbing. Many podcasts can get bogged down in a boring stretch of interview. Radiolab keeps their podcasts going by quickly cutting slow interview footage into exposition, in a seamless, and often humorous way.

For example, a scientist is explaining their theory of learning -- his voice fades out, and one of the hosts just summarizes it in a few quick, scripted seconds. It's hard to do -- to take a complex theory and reduce it to its essence. They are masters at it.

Some experts know how to prepare their answers for an 'audience' but most don't.  The topic could be fascinating, and important, but if the expert isn't a good speaker, or doesn't organize their thoughts well in the interview context, you may just press the 'skip' button. Radiolab has circumvented this problem with the creative use of the editing room.

A good example is this week's show 10-minute short episode "Voices in Your Head" where they look at how we learn to 'think' and, what the voices in our head mean.

Want More?
>> Listen to "Voices in Your Head"

>> Visit the Radiolab Website

Short Story: The Tenant, by Wells Tower

Author Wells Tower

The New Yorker ran a fiction issue called "20 under 40" - highlighting short fiction by 'younger' writers. "The Tenant", by Canadian-born Wells Tower, is worth checking out. And, you can read it for free on the New Yorker website. Tower's writing is lively and full of fun characters, witty banter and humour. There are more than one LOL moments to be had before the end of the story.

It's about a landlord who's dealing with the after-effects of the financial crisis. His life has gone from being very wealthy to, well, a lot less wealthy. He's had to sell is family cottage, and struggle to keep his few remaining properties from being taken by the banks. To get a sense of the tone of the narrator,

"My daughter has come from Los Angeles to live with me. Rhoda is thirty-one, and she used to work in advertising, but now she’s a painter and a maker of other art that I’m not sure how to describe. Her field is bummers. Rhoda’s past exhibitions include leukemia-cluster art, floating-yuan art, water-rights art, and mental-health-funding-cuts art, which was piles of clothes painted bronze and rigged up with speakers that yelled."

 And here's his daughter describing her new art project to him:

“To some extent, your problems with the real-estate stuff, and my parallel humiliation at having to move in with you. But in a broader sense it’s about our collective lack of integrity and total fucking childishness in the wake of the financial crisis, i.e., the national epidemic of petulance and bratty outrage over the fact that poor people don’t get to buy castles on credit anymore, that execs don’t get G.D.P.-size bonuses, that not just any housewife with a real-estate license gets to be a millionaire, and that you can’t stick a chopstick in a dog turd and sell it at Gagosian for the price of a yacht. ‘A Pestilence of Petulance’ is what I’m tempted to call it but probably shouldn’t.”

Want More?
>> Read the full story
>> Find out more about Wells Tower

Film Review: I Am Love

Visually Stunning

I Am Love, with Tilda Swinton, is a bit of a darling with the film critics this summer. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it doesn't live up to the hype. Ebert, for example, says in his review,

“I Am Love” is an amazing film. It is deep, rich, human. It is not about rich and poor, but about old and new. It is about the ancient war between tradition and feeling.

I Am Love is set a decade ago, in the world of a family of wealthy Italian industrialists. Emma, played by Swinton, married long ago into the Recchi family and seems in mastery of all that is in her domain, as a wife and mother. In the opening scene you see her carefully working the seating plan for a dinner party at the house. She, and everything in the estate, is perfectly appointed. It's a sterile world, to be sure, but beautiful all the same. Her kids, who are now adults, are lovely. Of course, you know something's gonna give, and, you know, given the title, that love will be the catalyst.

Cinematography, sets, music, and pacing are really something, and, worth the price of admission. Writing, not so much. The story could be right out of a Harlequin romance - no cliche is left unturned. (spoiler alert)  A repressed rich middle-aged woman's world get's blown apart when a poor, attractive, young, idealistic, artist (chef), -- oh, who happens to have a Garden of Eden in the Italian countryside to 'slum' in -- shows up on the scene and opens her up to her true feelings. It's bad when you say it that way.

It's romance-porn, turned high-art. Why is the young idealist interested in her? Emma is cold, shallow, married, and old enough to be his mother. They don't talk. They fall in love with furtive, meaningful glances almost instantly. In other words, there's no demonstration of any real connection between the two. Nor do they demonstrate why the viewer should give Emma a pass on adultery or care about this privileged society lady who made her choices and enjoys the wealth she married into.

The critics who rave about this film don't really talk about the story much. They seem entranced by the veneer of the film (which is impressive). It's a celebration of pleasure--  in food, and love, and visual beauty. All fine things. However, the lack of depth is a failing for the main character, and the film in general, keeping me from giving it more than 6.5/10.

Want more?
New Yorker Review of I Am Love
Ebert's Review of I Am Love
Official Website of the Movie

The Death of French Culture

In 2007, when Donald Morrison's article "In Search of Lost Time" was published in  TIME Magazine, there was a flurry of debate and discussion - in France, in particular. The French take their culture very seriously and the article struck a nerve - arguing that French culture was in serious trouble. Morrison lived in France for near a decade as a journalist.

It's now a book. The recently published, The Death of French Culture, expands on the thesis and clarifies some of the contentious points in his original article. This week, Laurie Taylor, host of the Thinking Allowed podcast, talks with Morrison and French Minister for European Affairs about the state of French culture. It's a fun debate. Laurie Taylor embodies some of the best attributes of the stereotypical British snob, and I love him for it. He seems to relish in talking about French failings.

In percentage terms, the French spend way more of their GDP on culture, when compared with other countries, even the UK which has a huge public broadcasting mandate. They also have things like a 10% ticket tax on films that goes into the film industry's programs (such as interest free loans given to film makers that often don't get paid back). Morrison's main argument is that the protectionist policies and heavy-handed government involvement in the French cultural industries has stifled their creativity and bred a type of boring and irrelevant film and literature.

Want More?
>> Listen to the Thinking Allowed podcast
>> The article, "In Search of Lost Time"

The Stuff You Missed in History Class Formula

Stuff You Missed in History Class is a podcast in the 20-30 minute format. The two hosts research an interesting moment in history and distill it into bite-sized chunks. They tell a highly scripted story, riffing off each other as they go, so that it has a conversational and upbeat tone. The end result is a form of what can best be described as 'edutainment'. The point is to keep it interesting and breezy for all you car drivers and people walking around with their earbuds. The scripting is pretty good, but after 10 episodes or so, the formula starts to be a bit too.... formulaic. Well produced, though.

Here are a few recent episode titles to give you an idea of the content they cover:

• "Medici Murders and a Basket Baby"
• "Did any Germans Resist Hitler?"
• "How Oscar Wilde Worked"
• "A Crusade Goes Wrong"
• "Why is Richard I called the Lionheart"
• "Caligula Disentangled"
• "The Lovers of Catherine the Great"

The hosts sound young, (oh - maybe I'm getting old), which is a tad off-putting given the subject matter. In fact, for many, their voices may be a barrier to enjoying the content.

Listen or Find out More
You can get back episodes and subscribe using the RSS or from ITunes. Here is the Stuff You Missed in History Class website. Enjoy!